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A  FRONTIER   TOWN 

AND    OTHEE    ESSAYS 


A    FRONTIER   TOWN 


AND 


OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY 

HENRY   CABOT  LODGE 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 
•&UFOR1 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1906 


Copyright,  1906 
BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Published  September,  1906 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PRESS,  CAMBRIDGE,   U.S.A. 


TO 

A.  C.  M.  L. 

WITH   THE  LOVE  AND   GRATITUDE  OF 
A    LIFETIME 


2149G3 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A  FRONTIER  TOWN 1 

GooD  CITIZENSHIP 31 

THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 56 

HISTORY 86 

SAMUEL  ADAMS 128 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 162 

SENATOR  HOAR 169 

AMERICAN  HISTORY 210 

CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT     ....  225 

FRANKLIN 249 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AT  ALGECIRAS 265 


UNIVERSITY 


A  FRONTIER  TOWN' 

"  Seventeen  hundred  and  fifty -five, 
Georgius  Secundus  was  then  alive, — 
Snuffy  old  drone  from  the  German  hive. 
That  was  the  year  when  Lisbon  town 
Saw  the  earth  open  and  gulp  her  down, 
And  Braddock's  army  was  done  so  brown, 
Left  without  a  scalp  to  its  crown. 
It  was  on  the  terrible  earth-quake  day 
That  the  Deacon  finished  his  one-hoss  shay." 

IT  was  a  busy  time  just  then,  at  the  very  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  And  two  years  before  this 
annus  mirabilis  described  by  Dr.  Holmes,  two  years 
before  the  Deacon  finished  his  masterpiece,  or  Lisbon 
was  ruined,  or  a  British  army  was  destroyed  by 
French  and  Indians  because  it  would  not  heed  the 
advice  of  George  Washington,  —  in  1753,  on  the  eve 
of  a  war  which  was  to  convulse  Europe,  decide  the 
fate  of  India,  and  give  North  America  finally  to 
English-speaking  people,  certain  loyal  subjects  of 
George  II.  on  this  spot  established  a  new  town-gov 
ernment.  The  homes  and  the  people  had  been  here 
from  a  much  earlier  time ;  but  in  1753  the  moment 
had  come  when  the  village  of  the  Green  River  felt 
that  it  should  be  independent.  The  consent  of  Deer- 

1  An  address  delivered  at  Greenfield,  Massachusetts,  June  9,  1903, 
on  the  150th  Anniversary  of  the  Incorporation  of  the  Town. 


2  A   FRONTIER  TOWN 

field,  the  original  settlement,  had  been  obtained,  the 
State  had  assented,  and  thereupon  Greenfield  be 
came  a  town  and  entered  on  her  separate  life.  It 
was  neither  an  unusual  nor  an  extraordinary  occur 
rence  —  this  birth  of  a  new  town  achieved  in  the 
orderly,  quiet  way  characteristic  of  New  England. 
Among  the  great  events  then  crowding  and  crushing 
together  to  settle  the  destiny  of  nations  and  make 
up  the  world's  history,  it  passed  quite  unnoticed 
except  by  those  engaged  in  the  undertaking.  Yet 
we  meet  here  to-day  to  celebrate  the  foundation 
of  that  town  ;  and  it  is  just  and  right  to  do  so,  for 
it  was  a  deed  wholly  worthy  of  commemoration.  I 
do  not  mean  by  this  the  mere  act  of  organizing 
a  town  government,  for  that  was  simple  enough. 
That  which  is  and  ought  to  be  memorable  to  us  is 
that  men  and  women  at  this  place  had  so  far  con 
quered  the  wilderness  that  they  were  able  to  form 
a  town,  and  that  ever  since  they  have  been  able  to 
carry  on  their  town  government  in  peace,  order, 
prosperity,  and  honor.  It  is  neither  the  place  nor 
the  time  that  we  would  celebrate,  but  the  men  and 
their  work,  of  which  the  place  and  time  are  but 
the  symbol  and  expression. 

"  o>s  ovdev  ovTf  Trvpyos  ovTt  vavs, 

dvdp&v  p.f]  ^VVOHCOVVTW  ecro>." 


"  Neither  citadel  nor  ship  is  of   any  worth  without 
the  men  dwelling  in  them." 


A   FRONTIER   TOWN  3 

What  we  commemorate  are  these  men  and  their 
deeds;  and  their  founding  a  town  was  a  good  piece 
of  honest  work  which  represented  much.  It  has 
abundant  meaning  if  rightly  understood,  and  we  may 
well  pause  to  consider  it.  The  work  was  begun  by 
breaking  into  the  wilderness  and  in  solitude  and 
hardship  subduing  the  untouched  earth  to  the  uses 
of  man.  It  was  continued  for  half  a  century  under 
the  stress  of  savage  and  desolating  war.  Then  it 
was  crowned  with  success  and  permanency. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  trace  in  detail  that  story  of 
adventure  and  persistent  toil,  of  courage  and  of 
hope.  That  has  been  done  already,  and  will  be  done 
again  still  more  amply  by  those  who  live  here  and 
who  have  given  to  the  annals  of  this  region  the 
study  they  deserve.  Tempting  as  all  this  is,  it  lies 
beyond  the  narrow  scope  of  an  address.  All  I  can  hope 
for  is  to  bring  before  you  quite  imperfectly,  rather 
disconnectedly,  I  fear,  two  or  three  facts  which  have 
risen  up  to  me  charged  with  a  somewhat  deep  sig 
nificance  as  I  have  reflected  upon  the  history  of  this 
Connecticut  Valley  and  of  this  town  of  Greenfield. 
It  is  not  the  hundred  and  fifty  years  which  has 
struck  me  as  at  all  important.  Periods  of  time 
are  all  comparative.  A  century  and  a  half  con 
stitutes  a  ripe  age  in  America.  It  is  infancy 
in  England  and  in  western  Europe.  But  the  oldest 
town  of  England  is  modern  compared  to  Rome; 


4  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

Rome  is  of  yesterday  when  put  by  the  side  of  Egypt, 
and  the  Roman  law  which  runs  far  beyond  our 
Christian  era  is  a  new  invention  when  placed  be 
side  the  six-thousand-year-old  code  of  the  Elamite 
King,  Humarabbi.  On  the  other  hand,  time  can 
not  be  computed  for  us  by  the  calendar  alone.  The 
Aruwhimi  dwarfs  of  the  African  forests  were  noted 
by  Herodotus,  and  then  again  by  Stanley  after  a  little 
interval  of  some  three  thousand  years.  If  it  had 
been  three  hundred  or  thirty  thousand  it  would 
have  been  just  as  important,  for  nothing  had  hap 
pened.  As  they  were  when  Herodotus  mentioned 
them  so  they  still  were  when  Stanley  stumbled  upon 
them  in  the  tropical  forest. 

"  Better  fifty  years  of  Europe 
Than  a  cycle  of  Cathay." 

It  is  the  rate  at  which  men  live  which  must  be 
counted,  as  well  as  the  calendar,  when  we  reckon 
time.  The  years  of  the  French  Revolution  covered 
a  wider  space  in  life  and  experience  and  meaning 
than  the  entire  century  which  preceded  them.  The 
American  people  lived  more  and  lived  longer  be 
tween  1861  and  1865  than  in  all  the  years  which 
had  passed  since  Yorktown.  So  our  century  and  a 
half  of  town  existence  looks  very  short  when  we 
put  it  side  by  side  with  the  long  procession  of  the 
recorded  years  fading  away  into  a  remote  distance 


**^  "  ' 


JUM  ^ 
A   FRONTIER  TOWN 

in  the  valleys  of  the  Tiber  and  the  Nile.  Yet  for 
all  that,  it  is  not  brief.  Properly  regarded  it  is  a 
very  long  time,  for  it  is  with  nations  even  as  with 

men: 

"  One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name." 

VWT  Is    >: 
The  last  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  wit 

nessed  political  and  economic  changes  more  rapid 
and  more  profound  than  a  thousand  previous  cen 
turies  could  show.  The  same  period  has  seen  a 
revolution  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  and  in  the 
relations  of  men,  due  to  the  annihilation  of  time  and 
the  reduction  of  space  by  electricity  and  steam, 
which  separates  us  further  in  certain  essential  ways 
of  life  from  the  men  who  fought-  .at  Waterloo  than 
they  were  separated  from  those  who  died  at  Ther 
mopylae  ;  and  in  all  the  history  of  this  I  wonderful 
time  there  is  no  chapter  more  impressive  than  that 
which  we  ourselves  have  written. 

Let  us  look  at  it  once  more  as  it  comes  out  here  in 
the  history  of  this  town.  Where  we  stand  to-day 
was  once  a  frontier,  not  a  mere  boundary  line  be 
tween  one  State  or  one  country  and  another,  but  a 
true  frontier,  the  far-flung  line  of  advance  against 
the  savage  and  the  wilderness.  I  have  often  thought 
that  a  book  which  told  the  story  of  the  American 
frontier  would  be  of  intense  interest.  As  one  looks 
at  it  in  what  seems  to  me  to  be  the  true  fashion, 


6  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

one  comes  to  personify  it,  to  feel  as  if  it  were  a 
sentient  being,  struggling  forward  through  darkness 
and  light,  through  peace  and  war,  planting  itself  in  a 
new  spot,  clinging  there  desperately  until  its  hold  is 
firm  and  then  plunging  forward  again  into  the  dim 
unknown  to  live  over  the  old  conflict.  Frontiers 
such  as  ours  have  been  do  not  go  slowly  forward, 
building  one  house  next  another  in  the  manner  of 
a  growing  city.  The  Puritan  Englishmen  of  Massa 
chusetts  Bay  had  scarcely  fastened  their  grip  upon 
the  rugged  shore  where  they  had  landed  when 
Pyncheon  pushed  out  from  the  coast  and  estab 
lished  his  outpost  on  the  Connecticut.  From  Spring 
field  the  little  settlements  spread  slowly  up  arid  down 
the  river  and  thus  the  new  frontier  was  formed. 
The  older  plantations  along  the  coast  were  then  no 
longer  outposts,  and  the  space  between  them  and  the 
western  line  lay  ready  to  be  filled  in.  Gradually  the 
border  villages  planted  themselves  and  crept  north 
ward  up  the  river,  subduing  the  wilderness  and  reaping 
the  harvest  of  the  rich  valley.  They  were  just  begin 
ning  here  when  the  red  man  came  to  the  aid  of  the 
yielding  forest  and  the  savage  war  known  by  the 
name  of  Philip  broke  upon  them  and  went  raging 
and  burning  hither  and  thither  along  the  river, 
thrusting  itself  down  between  the  towns  to  the  east 
ward,  and  into  the  very  heart  of  the  coast  settle 
ments.  Many  were  the  fights  close  by  here,  most 


A   FRONTIER   TOWN  7 

conspicuous  the  bloody  defeat  at  the  Brook,  and  the 
shining  victory  at  the  Falls,  which  still  bear  the 
victor's  name.  For  weary  months  and  years  the  war 
blazed  red  and  wild,  then  it  began  to  flicker,  flaring 
up  only  to  sink  down  again  into  smouldering  embers, 
until  it  finally  died  away,  leaving  ashes  and  desolation 
as  its  monuments. 

Again  the  pioneers  worked  their  way  up  the  river, 
again  the  houses  rose  and  the  meadows  smiled  and 
the  forest  was  cleared.  This  time  the  settlers  took 
a  firmer  grip.  Grants  of  land  were  made  here, 
mills  built,  and  Deerfield,  of  which  this  town  was 
then  a  part,  sent  her  representative  to  Boston  to 
sustain  the  cause  of  William  against  James.  But 
William  of  Orange  had  more  serious  enemies  than 
his  poor,  confused  father-in-law.  Louis  XIV.  made 
war  upon  him,  and  again  the  storm  of  savage  inva 
sion  broke  on  the  New  England  frontier,  guided 
now  by  the  intelligence  of  France.  Much  fighting 
and  burning  ensued,  but  the  settlers  either  held  on 
or  if  driven  off  came  back  after  the  Peace  of  Kyswick 
in  1697.  Then  a  brief  lull,  then  a  disputed  Spanish 
throne :  once  more  France  and  England  fought,  and 
again  the  French  and  Indians  poured  down  upon 
the  valleys  and  hillsides  of  New  England.  Here, 
just  here,  the  worst  blow  fell.  Deerfield  was  al 
most  swept  from  the  map  already  so  deeply  scarred. 
It  was  such  a  long  war  too.  It  went  on  for  some 


8  A   FRONTIER  TOWN 

ten  years  after  the  sack  of  Deerfield.  Men's  hearts 
began  to  fail.  They  were  ready,  almost,  to  think 
that  this  was  an  accursed  spot,  dogged  by  misfortune 
and  haunted  by  slaughter  and  pillage.  But  the  stout 
hearts  did  not  fail  entirely.  The  men  finally  made 
their  way  back  again  after  all.  They  held  on  to  this 
beautiful  valley,  and  over  the  ruined  homesteads  they 
finally  planted  themselves  more  conclusively  than 
ever.  War  was  not  over,  by  any  means.  There  was 
peace  in  Europe,  but  the  Jesuit  missionaries  had  not 
made  peace ;  and  Father  Rasle's  War,  as  it  was  called, 
led  to  sharp  and  bloody  fighting  in  New  England, 
chiefly  to  the  eastward,  yet  with  enough  of  ambush 
and  murder  and  sudden  death  in  these  valleys  to 
make  the  people  realize  the  hard  tenure  by  which 
they  held  their  lands.  When  the  war  of  the  Aus 
trian  succession  came,  Deerfield  was  still  on  the  edge, 
but  the  fighting  frontier  had  moved  forward  and  the 
little  hill-towns,  each  with  its  fort,  formed  a  line  of 
outworks.  Before  the  "  old  French  war,"  as  we 
have  been  wont  to  call  it,  broke  out  ten  years  later, 
Greenfield  had  been  born,  and  the  line  of  frontier 
swung  to  the  north  and  ceased  to  be  a  frontier 
when  Canada  passed  into  English  hands.  Now,  too, 
it  moved  on  westward  until  it  joined  that  other  ad 
vance  guard  of  settlements  which  had  crept  up  the 
Hudson  and  then  turned  to  the  west  along  the 
Mohawk.  The  frontier  days  of  the  Connecticut  val- 


A   FRONTIER   TOWN  9 

ley  were  over  and  it  had  taken  half  a  century  to 
do  the  work.  Children  had  been  born  and  had 
grown  to  be  elderly  men  and  women  who  had  known 
nothing  but  more  or  less  constant  war.  They  had 
passed  their  lives  in  fighting  to  hold  their  own  here 
among  these  peaceful  hills,  facing  the  wilderness, 
listening  nightly  for  the  war-whoop  and  watching 
daily  for  signs  of  a  lurking  foe.  What  a  fine  story 
it  is !  —  and  have  we  not  the  right  to  be  proud  of  the 
men  who  made  it  possible  ? 

But  the  unresting  frontier  sprang  forward,  much 
lengthened  now  and  running  north  and  south  along 
the  Alleghanies  when  the  Revolution  began.  Then 
George  Rogers  Clarke  carried  the  country's  bound 
ary  to  the  Mississippi,  and  after  peace  came  the 
frontier  moved  slowly  and  painfully  after  it  across 
the  "  Dark  and  Bloody  Ground/'  along  the  Great 
Lakes  at  the  north  and  the  Gulf  at  the  south.  Then 
there  was  a  pause  while  all  that  vast  region  was 
taken  into  possession,  and  then  the  frontier  leaped 
onwards  again  in  the  southwest  and  pushed  the 
boundary  before  it  far  down  to  the  Rio  Grande. 
Another  pause  while  the  settlements  slowly  shot 
out  beyond  the  Mississippi,  and  then  came  the  war 
with  Mexico,  the  Pacific  coast  was  ours,  and  a  second 
frontier  began  to  move  eastward  toward  that  which 
had  been  travelling  westward  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years.  In  our  time  we  have  seen  them 


10  A   FRONTIER  TOWN 

meet.  It  was  only  a  few  years  ago,  and  the  meet 
ing  was  hardly  noticed.  Men  scarcely  realized  that 
there  had  ceased  to  be  a  frontier  in  the  United 
States,  that  there  was  no  longer  a  line  where  the 
hardy  pioneers  stood  face  to  face  with  an  untamed 
wilderness,  ever  pressing  forward  against  it.  Indian 
wars  had  ended,  the  red  man  was  finally  submerged 
by  the  all-embracing  tide  of  the  white  civilization. 
Those  wars  had  lasted  for  more  than  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ;  they  sank  into  final  peace  and  silence, 
and  the  hurrying  American  world  did  not  stop  to 
note  it.  But  history  will  note  it  well  and  ponder 
upon  it,  for  it  marked  the  ending  of  a  long  struggle 
and  the  beginning  of  a  new  epoch.  The  American 
frontier  had  ceased  to  be,  the  conquest  of  the  con 
tinent  was  complete,  the  work  which  the  men  of 
Greenfield  and  Deerfield  had  carried  on  for  fifty 
hard  fighting  years  was  finished  at  last  far  out 
upon  the  western  plains.  If  you  would  know  what 
that  fact  meant  ask  yourself  how  it  is  that  Amer 
ican  enterprise  in  the  last  six  years,  leaping  over 
our  own  borders,  has  forced  its  way  into  every 
market  of  the  globe,  and  why  the  flag  floats  now 
from  Porto  Rico  to  Manila. 

This  making  and  moving  of  a  frontier  has  been 
a  mighty  work,  and  that  part  of  it  which  was  done 
here  during  fifty  years  of  conflict,  remote,  unheard- 
of  in  the  great  world  of  the  eighteenth  century, 


•*• 


A    FRONTIER   TOWN  11 

seems  to  me  both  fine  and  heroic.  There  was  no 
dazzling  glory  to  be  won,  no  vast  wealth  to  be 
suddenly  gained  from  mines  or  wrested  from  the 
hands  of  feeble  natives.  The  only  tangible  reward 
was  at  the  utmost  a  modest  farm.  But_  there 
was  a  grim  determination  not  to  yield,  a  quite  set 
tled  intention  to  conquer  fate,  visible  still  to  us 
among  those  men,  silent  for  the  most  part,  but 
well  worth  serious  contemplation  in  these  days  when 
success  is  chiefly  reckoned  in  money  value. 

Consider,  too,  how  this  work  of  these  old  pioneers, 
wrought  out  here  in  this  distant  corner  as  it  then 
was  of  the  British  Empire,  formed,  as  all  labor 
worth  the  doing  must  form,  part  of  the  work  of 
the  race  and  of  the  world.  See  how  it  touched 
and  responded  to  the  events  of  the  world  as  the 
pulse  beats  with  the  heart;  and  how  these  men, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  it  matters  not,  lived 
the  life  of  their  time,  which,  to  all  men  who  are 
real,  must  be  the  supreme  test.  Just  before  Parsons 
built  his  mill  here,  England  was  deciding  whether 
James  Stuart  or  William  of  Orange  should  rule 
over  her, —  whether  she  would  continue  free  or  sink 
back  to  an  autocratic  monarchy;  and  Deerfield,  not 
knowing  how  the  issue  might  turn,  sent  her  man 
across  the  forests  to  Boston,  and  cast  in  her  lot 
with  the  Dutch  Prince.  Louis  XIV  and  William 
of  Orange  grappled  on  the  plains  of  Flanders  and 


12  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

at  once  the  war-whoop  of  the  savage  and  the  crack 
of  the  English  musket  broke  the  stillness  of  these 
valleys.  Such  free,  representative  government  as 
then  existed  rested  solely  in  the  keeping  of  the 
English-speaking  people.  France  represented  des 
potism,  and  the  power  of  France  was  its  bulwark. 
The  struggle  broke  out  again  under  Anne,  nomi 
nally  over  the  Spanish  succession,  really  to  deter 
mine  whether  France  should  dominate  Europe  and 
America.  For  this  cause  of  English  freedom  Marl- 
borough  won  Blenheim,  Deerfield  went  up  in  flames, 
and  Massachusetts  farmers  fell  dead  by  their  plows 
or  hunted  their  French  and  Indian  foes  through 
the  forests  of  New  England. 

The  struggle  between  France  and  England  did  not 
end,  however,  with  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.  France 
was  checked  and  beaten  but  not  crushed,  and  the 
century  was  little  more  than  forty  years  old  when 
the  long-standing  conflict  was  renewed.  Again  the 
frontiersmen  fought,  and  this  time  New  England  took 
Louisburg,  the  one  serious  triumph  of  an  ill-conducted 
war.  And  during  all  this  time,  in  peace  and  war 
alike,  the  people  of  New  York  and  New  England, 
slowly  pushing  forward,  slowly  gathering  strength, 
were  determining  who  should  be  the  masters  of 
America.  The  final  decision  could  not  be  long  post 
poned,  and  it  came  to  the  last  arbitrament  in  1756. 
It  was  a  great  war,  that  "  war  of  seven  years,"  as 


A   FRONTIER  TOWN  13 

it  was  called.  It  settled  many  questions  of  mighty 
import:  that  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia  should 
not  be  crushed,  but  should  rise  in  victory  over  Bour 
bon  and  Hapsburg  and  Romanoff;  that  India  should 
become  a  possession  of  Great  Britain  and  India's 
millions  her  subjects,  —  as  well  as  sundry  other  mat 
ters  of  less  meaning  to  us  to-day.  But  it  also  deter 
mined  finally  that  North  America  should  belong  to  the 
English-speaking  people  and  not  to  France,  something 
more  momentous  to  the  world's  future,  politically  and 
economically,  than  any  other  event  of  that  time. 

Pitt  said  that  he  "  conquered  America  on  the 
plains  of  Germany."  It  is  true  enough  that  the 
death  struggle  then  in  progress  between  the  Eng 
lish  and  North  German  people,  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  Bourbon  and  Hapsburg  monarchies  on  the  other, 
had  to  be  sustained  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 
But  the  effort  to  gain  sole  dominion  in  North  Amer 
ica  for  the  English-speaking  people  would  have 
been  utterly  vain  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  labors 
of  that  same  people  in  America  itself.  The  English 
colonies  in  America,  founded  and  built  up  slowly  and 
painfully  by  men  whose  existence  England  at  times 
almost  forgot,  were  the  efficient  cause  of  the  over 
throw  of  France  in  the  New  World. 

"  The  Lilies  withered  where  the  Lion  trod ; " 
but  the  Lion  would  never  have  reached  the  Lilies 
if  his  path  had  not  been  cleared   for   him   by  the 


14  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

stubborn  fighters  of  the  American  colonies,  cling 
ing  grimly  to  the  soil  they  had  won  and  ever 
pushing  forward  the  restless  frontier,  behind  which 
towns  gathered  to  mark  the  progress  of  the  march. 

So  the  half -century  -  of  conflict  ended.  Another 
George  was  on  the  throne,  the  northern  danger  had 
passed  away,  and  men  began  to  consider  their  rela 
tions  with  the  mother  country.  We  know  well  what 
followed.  Ignorance  and  arrogance  in  London  bred 
resistance  in  America,  until  at  last  revolution  was 
afoot,  and  the  American  people  determined  to  make 
a  new  nation  in  the  new  world.  The  movement  now 
was  toward  independence  and  democratic  govern 
ment.  In  the  latter  direction  all  the  western  world 
was  soon  to  take  part,  but  the  first  step  was  ours. 
As  in  the  earlier  days  when  the  question  was  whether 
English  freedom  should  prevail  over  Bourbon  monar 
chies,  so  now  Greenfield  lived  the  life  of  the  time. 
She  sent  her  men  to  Boston  to  join  Washington's 
army.  She  responded  vigorously  to  the  call  that 
came  later  over  the  mountains  to  go  forth  and  help 
to  compass  the  destruction  of  Burgoyne.  And  from 
the  days  of  revolution  onwards,  so  it  has  always  been. 
You  have  always  lived  the  life  of  your  time.  You 
have  stood  the  supreme  test.  You  helped  to  make 
the  State.  You  sustained  the  Constitution  upon  which 
the  nation  was  founded.  From  these  valleys  in  gen 
eration  after  generation  men  and  women  have  gone 


A   FRONTIER  TOWN  15 

forth  to  carry  forward  the  frontier  and>  subdue  the 
continent,  even  as  your  ancestors  did  over  two  hun 
dred  years  ago.  When  the  hour  of  stress  and  peril 
came  you  have  not  failed.  When  the  life  of  the  na 
tion  was  at  stake  your  sons  went  forth  and  fought 
for  four  years  to  save  the  Union.  In  the  war  of  five 
years  ago  soldiers  from  this  town  were  at  the  front 
in  Cuba,  and  the  last  sacrifice  of  young  life  was 
offered  up  at  El  Caney  for  flag  and  country.  You 
have  a  right  to  be  proud  of  your  record,  for  you  have 
done  your  share  to  the  full,  and  no  one  can  do  more. 
You  have  never  sunk  back  in  ignoble  ease  and  held 
aloof  from  your  fellows.  In  the  advance  columns  of 
the  nation  you  have  always  marched.  The  stern  cry 
of  "  Forward !  "  has  never  fallen  here  upon  deaf  ears 
or  been  disobeyed  by  faint  hearts. 

Yet  there  are  some  persons,  native,  alas !  and  to 
the  manner  born,  who  can  see  nothing  of  interest, 
nothing  picturesque,  nothing  romantic  in  this  history 
of  the  United  States,  one  little  fragment  of  which  I 
have  tried  faintly  to  outline.  Such  beings,  steadily 
declining  in  numbers  in  these  later  years,  always 
remind  me  of  the  tendrils  which  a  vine  sometimes 
thrusts  through  the  crevices  of  a  house  wall  into 
some  cellar  or  unused  chamber.  They  grow  there  in 
the  twilight  very  fast,  quite  perfect,  too,  in  form,  for 
they  are  in  shelter  there  where  the  winds  do  not  beat 
upon  them  nor  the  sun  scorch  nor  insects  gnaw  them. 


16  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

But  they  are  pale  things,  white  of  leaf  and  shoot, 
when  they  should  be  dark  and  green.  And  then 
winter  comes  and  the  vine  sleeps,  and  when  it  awakes 
in  the  spring  the  hard  brown  trunk  and  branches, 
which  have  been  twisted  and  whipped  in  the  storms 
and  faced  cold  and  heat  and  sunshine  and  cloud,  fill 
with  sap  and  burgeon  with  leaves  and  rich  young 
life ;  but  the  tendrils  which  have  crept  into  the  shel 
tered  dimness  of  the  cellar  are  withered  and  dead  and 
bloom  no  more. 

So  the  pallid  souls  who  can  see  nothing,  read  no 
meaning  in  all  this  history  of  the  United  States,  have 
dwelt  so  long  in  the  twilight  of  the  past,  in  the  shel 
ter  of  foreign  lands  far  from  the  rude,  vigorous,  ex 
uberant  life  of  this  new  world  of  ours,  that  they  have 
grown  feeble  of  sight  and  extinct  of  feeling.  They 
must  have  ruins  and  castles  and  walled  towns  and  all 
the  heaped-up  riches  of  the  centuries  about  them  be 
fore  they  can  believe  that  there  is  any  history  worth 
the  telling.  He  would  indeed  be  dull  of  soul  who 
could  walk  unmoved  in  spirit  among  the  tombs  of 
Westminster,  or  gaze  indifferently  upon  the  cathedral 
of  Amiens,  or  look  out  unstirred  over  the  Eoman 
Forum,  or  behold  from  the  Sicilian  shore,  without  a 
quickening  of  the  pulse,  the  crags  which  Polyphemus 
hurled  after  Ulysses.  Man's  work  on  earth  is  of  pro- 
foundest  interest  to  man,  and  where  his  monuments 
are  gathered  thickest,  memories  cluster  most,  and  we 


A   FRONTIER   TOWN  17 

seem  nearest  to  those  who  have  gone  before.  But 
those  who  think  that  this  is  all  mistake  the  vesture 
for  reality.  They  are  still  believers  in  the  doctrine 
of  clothes  explained  once  by  Thomas  Carlyle  in  a 
manner  which  it  would  profit  them  to  read.  Like 
Lear  they  would  do  well  to  tear  off  "  these  lendings," 
come  to  the  naked  facfcs,  and  find  the  soul  which 
inhabits  them. 

There  is  something  older  than  walled  towns  and 
castles  and  ruins,  and  that  is  the  history  of  the  race 
who  built  them.  It  is  well  to  give  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare  all  the  splendors  of  mounting  and  cos 
tume  and  scenery  which  the  resources  of  the  modern 
theatre  can  bestow,  but  these  things  are  not  Shake 
speare.  The  immortal  poetry,  the  greatest  genius 
among  men  were  all  there  on  the  bare  platform 
of  the  "Globe"  playhouse  when  a  sign  alone  told 
the  audience  what  the  scene  of  action  was.  The 
background  is  important,  very  pleasurable  too,  but 
the  drama  of  humanity  is  what  gives  it  value,  and 
the  scenery  is  secondary  to  the  actors  and  the 
play.  The  trappings  and  the  clothes  of  history 
count  for  much,  no  doubt,  in  Europe  or  Asia  or 
Egypt,  —  chiefly  for  what  they  tell  us  of  those  who 
made  them;  but  man  himself  and  of  our  own  race 
is  and  has  been  here,  too,  for  some  three  hundred 
years,  just  as  in  those  older  lands.  Come  out  of 
the  twilight,  then,  into  the  noonday  and  look  at 


18  A   FRONTIER  TOWN 

him  and  his  deeds.  Here  we  have  seen  in  our  his 
tory  men  engaged  in  that  which  was  the  very  first 
battle  of  humanity  against  the  primeval  forces  of 
nature,  before  there  was  any  history  except  what 
can  be  read  in  a  few  chipped  flints.  Here  in  this 
America  of  ours  in  the  last  three  centuries  we  have 
had  waged  the  bitter  struggle  of  the  race  against  the 
earth  gods  and  the  demons  of  air  and  forest,  but  it 
has  been  carried  on  by  civilized  men,  not  skin-clad 
savages,  upon  a  scale  never  known  before,  and  which, 
upon  our  little  globe  now  all  mapped  and  navigated, 
will  never  be  seen  again.  Our  three  centuries  have 
watched  the  living  tide  roll  on,  pushing  the  savage 
who  had  wasted  his  inheritance  before  it,  and  sweep 
ing  off  to  one  side  or  the  other  rival  races  which  strove 
with  it  for  mastery.  Here  has  been  effected  the  con 
quest  of  a  continent,  its  submission  to  the  uses  of  man  ; 
and  there  is  no  greater  achievement  possible  than  this 
with  all  its  manifold  meanings.  Here  the  years  have 
seen  a  new  nation  founded,  built  up  and  then  welded 
together  in  the  greatest  war  of  the  last  century,  at  a 
vast  sacrifice  dictated  only  by  faith  in  country,  and 
by  the  grand  refusal  to  dissolve  into  jarring  atoms. 
To  me  there  is  here  an  epic  of  human  life  and 
a  drama  of  human  action  larger  in  its  proportions 
than  almost  any  which  have  gone  before.  To  those 
who  can  discern  only  crude  civilization,  unkempt,  un 
finished  cities,  little  towns  on  the  border,  unbeautiful 


A   FRONTIER  TOWN  19 

in  hasty  and  perishable  houses,  rawness  and  roughness, 
and  a  lack  of  the  refinements  of  more  ancient  seats  of 
the  race,  I  say,  you  are  still  under  the  dominion  of  the 
religion  of  clothes.  You  hear  only  the  noise  of  the 
streets,  and  you  are  deaf  to  the  mighty  harmonies 
which  sound  across  the  ages. 

There  is  a  majestic  sweep  to  the  events  which  have 
befallen  in  this  Western  Hemisphere  since  the  found 
ing  of  Jamestown  and  Plymouth  which  it  is  hard  to 
rival  in  any  movement  of  mankind.  And  it  is  all 
compact  of  those  personal  incidents  which  stir  the 
heart  and  touch  the  imagination  more  than  the 
march  of  the  race,  because  we  are  each  one  of  us 
nearer  to  the  man  than  to  the  multitude.  These 
are  the  events  which  in  the  mass  make  up  human 
history,  and  wherever  human  history  has  been  made 
we  find  them,  whether  on  the  windy  plains  of  Troy 
or  in  an  American  forest.  No  need  to  go  beyond 
this  valley  to  show  my  meaning.  The  little  group 
in  Queen  Anne's  War  holding  the  Stebbins  house  in 
smoke  and  flame  against  overwhelming  odds ;  the 
women  and  children  in  Mr.  Williams' s  home,  mur 
dered,  shrieking  in  the  darkness,  —  are  as  tragic  in 
their  way  as  Ugolino  in  the  Tower  of  Famine,  but 
they  have  had  no  Dante  to  tell  their  tale.  The 
farmer  slain  at  his  plow,  the  stealthy  scouting 
through  the  dusky  woods,  the  captives  dragged 
over  ice  and  snow  to  Canada,  are  as  full  of  deep 


20  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

human  interest  as  the  English  adventurer  or  the 
Italian  Condottiere  or  the  German  Lanzknecht,  who 
sold  their  swords  to  the  highest  bidder  in  Italy  four 
hundred  years  ago.  They  deserve  interest  far  more 
too,  and  were  doing  work  in  world  conquest  which 
counted  in  the  final  reckoning,  and  was  not  merely 
a  noisy  brawl,  dying  into  eternal  silence  when  the 
tavern  closed.  Travel  two  thousand  miles  from 
here  to  the  far  Southwest,  and  look  at  the  last 
fight  of  David  Crockett.  Is  there  anything  finer 
in  the  history  of  brave  men  than  that  death  grip 
at  the  Alamo  ?  The  great  scout  wore  a  buckskin 
shirt,  it  was  all  less  than  seventy  years  ago;  but 
strip  the  clothes,  and  man  for  man  how  does  he 
differ  from  Leonidas?  Remember  too,  as  has  been 
said,  that  Thermopylae  had  her  messengers  of  death, 
and  the  Alamo  had  none.  The  spot  where  human 
valor  has  reached  to  the  highest  point  attainable 
is  as  sacred  in  Texas  as  in  Greece.  It  is  full  and 
brimming  over,  that  history  of  ours,  with  the  labors 
and  toils,  the  crimes  and  the  passions,  the  sorrows 
and  victories  of  human  beings  like  ourselves,  —  with 
comedy  and  tragedy,  with  pathos  and  humor  and 
poetry.  All  that  is  needed  is  the  seeing  eye  instead 
of  a  vision  grown  dim  in  a  region  of  half-lights. 
Byron  looked  at  it  and  the  drama  of  the  frontier, 
and  the  men  it  bred  rose  clear  before  him.  In 
noble  verse  he  has  embodied  that  march  of  the 


»     '^ 

o-f         x\£ 


A   FRONTIER   TOWN  21 

race  against  untamed  Nature  in  the  figure  of  Daniel 
Boone  fighting  the  savages,  fighting  the  forest, 
hunting  the  wild  animals  in  their  lair  until  the 
reserves  of  the  army  had  crossed  the  Alleghanies  and 
come  up  to  his  support.  And  then  the  old  man 
feels  choked  and  smothered  by  the  civilization  and 
the  settlements  for  which  he  has  cleared  the  way 
and  fought  the  battles,  and  he  passes  on,  a  grim, 
grey  figure,  crosses  the  great  river,  and  goes  again 
into  the  wilderness  where  he  can  be  alone  under 
the  sky  and  watch  the  stars  and  hear  the  wind 
upon  the  heath  untroubled  by  the  sound  of  human 
voices. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  English  peer  to  the  Amer 
ican  carpenter,  but  both  could  see  the  realities  below 
the  surface,  and  Whitman,  poet  and  prophet,  felt  in 
his  soul  the  poetry  of  the  great  democracy.  He  saw 
it  in  the  crowds  of  New  York,  in  the  common  affairs 
of  life,  in  the  great  movement  over  the  continent,  in 
the  pioneers  who  led  the  advance ;  and  in  strange 
forms  he  gave  it  to  the  world,  first,  to  wonder  at, 
and  then  dimly  to  understand.  Emerson,  a  greater 
man  than  either  of  these,  read  in  his  fashion  the 
meaning  of  this  great  new  world,  and  gave  it  forth 
in  a  message  which  dwells  forever  in  the  hearts  of 
all  who  have  paused  to  listen  to  his  teachings.  Haw 
thorne  and  Holmes,  Whittier  and  Lowell  and  Long 
fellow,  each  in  his  degree,  heard  the  voices  of  the  land 


22  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

and  of  its  people,  and  touched  his  highest  notes  when 
inspired  by  them. 

They  are  all  there,  the  epic  and  the  drama  and  the 
lyric.  They  are  all  there  in  the  great  movement, 
with  its  wide  sweep  passing  on  relentless  like  the 
forces  of  nature.  You  will  find  every  one  of  them, 
if  you  come  nearer,  in  the  small  community,  in  the 
family,  in  the  individual  man,  instinct  with  all  the 
passions,  all  the  aspirations,  all  the  fears  of  the  human 
heart,  new  with  the  freshness  of  eternal  youth,  and 
ancient  as  the  first  coming  of  man  upon  earth.  And 
if  the  scenery  and  the  trappings,  the  clothes,  the  titles, 
and  the  contrasts  of  condition  are  lacking,  there  is  this 
compensation,  that  this  story  is  all  alive.  It  leads  us 
to  the  very  portals  of  the  present,  and  the  imagina 
tion  looking  thence  can  dispense  with  an  outworn  past 
when  it  is  able  to  range  over  the  future  which  belongs 
in  ever  increasing  measure  to  the  new  world. 

To  this  hour,  then,  we  have  come.  We  have  trav 
elled  far  in  thought,  and  we  have  been  gazing  back 
ward  over  the  road  by  which  we  have  passed.  Let 
us  turn  our  eyes  for  a  moment  upon  the  present 
which  is  our  own,  which  lies  all  about  us,  and  peer 
thence  into  the  future  which  stretches  before  us  lim 
itless  and  unknown.  We  have  toiled  hard  in  our 
three  hundred  years.  What  have  the  generations 
accomplished  ?  Very  great  results,  no  one  can  doubt. 
By  such  work  as  has  been  done  here  in  this  valley 


A   FRONTIER   TOWN  23 

we  have  made  a  great  nation,  no  greater  now  extant 
as  it  seems  to  me,  and  yet  we  are  only  beginning  to 
run  our  course.  We  are  still  young  and  unbreathed, 
with  mighty  strength  and  muscles  trained  and  un 
exhausted.  We  have  amassed  riches  beyond  the 
dreams  of  avarice,  and  our  resources  are  neither 
wasted  nor  decayed.  We  have  shared  in  the  revo 
lution  of  steam  and  electricity,  and  harnessed  them 
to  our  purposes  as  no  other  people  have  done.  We 
have  also  in  these  and  other  ways  quickened  life  and 
living  to  an  enormous  degree.  Our  vast  industrial 
and  economic  machinery  is  pushing  forward  with  an 
accelerating  speed,  at  a  rate  which  should  inspire  us 
with  caution  as  it  already  inspires  other  nations  with 
alarm.  All  the  instrumentalities  of  learning,  of  art, 
of  pleasure  are  growing  with  an  unexampled  rapidity. 
We  have  contributed  to  literature,  we  have  done  great 
work  in  science,  we  have  excelled  in  invention,  we  have 
bettered  vastly  the  condition  of  life  to  all  men.  There 
is  to-day  no  more  impressive  fact  in  this  world  of  ours 
than  the  United  States.  A  great  country,  a  great 
people ;  courage,  energy,  ability,  force,  all  abundant, 
inexhaustible  ;  power,  riches,  success  ;  glory  to  spare 
both  in  war  and  peace ;  patriotism  at  home ;  respect 
abroad.  Such  is  the  present.  Such  are  the  results  of 
the  century  and  a  half  we  commemorate  here  to-day. 
But  this  is  not  all.  We  should  be  undeserving  of 
our  past,  reckless  of  our  future,  if  we  did  not  fully 


24  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

realize  that  we  are  human,  that  we  have  our  perils 
and  our  trials,  and  that  success  can  be  kept  only  as 
it  has  been  earned  by  courage,  wisdom,  and  a  truth 
ful  mind,  which  looks  facts  in  the  face  and  scorns  all 
shams  and  delusions.  We  have  met  and  solved  great 
problems.  We  have  other  problems  ever  rising  with 
the  recurrent  years,  which,  like  those  that  have  gone 
before,  will  not  settle  themselves,  but  must  in  their 
turn  be  met  and  brought  to  a  solution.  Our  prob 
lems  are  our  own.  They  grow  out  of  the  conditions 
of  the  time,  as  those  of  our  fathers  did  in  the  earlier 
days.  From  without  there  is  nothing  we  need  fear. 
"  Come  the  three  corners  of  the  world  in  arms  and 
we  shall  shock  them."  Nor  does  cause  for  serious 
anxiety  arise  from  the  ordinary  questions  of  domestic 
management.  Tariffs  and  currencies,  the  develop 
ment  of  the  country,  the  opening  of  waterways,  the 
organization  of  defence  and  of  administration  can  all 
be  dealt  with  successfully.  The  government  of  our 
great  cities,  the  problem  of  the  negro,  the  question  of 
regulating  and  assimilating  our  enormous  immigra 
tion  are  in  the  highest  degree  grave  issues  of  great 
pith  and  moment  which  have  a  large  bearing  upon 
our  future  weal  or  woe.  But  I  think  they  can  all  be 
met,  that  they  all  will  be  met  with  patient  effort  and 
with  a  due  measure  of  success.  None  of  them  touches 
the  foundations  of  society  or  the  sources  of  national 
life,  unless  they  should  be  neglected  or  mishandled  to 


A    FRONTIER   TOWN  25 

A 

a  degree  inconceivable  with  a  people  so  intelligent  and 
so  energetic  as  our  own. 

But  there  are  certain  other  questions  looming  up,  the 
outgrowth  of  conditions  common  to  the  whole  world 
of  western  civilization,  and  arising  from  the  vast  ex 
pansion  and  phenomenal  acceleration  of  the  industrial 
and  economic  forces  of  the  age.  They  touch  us  par 
ticularly,  because  we  are  expanding  and  quickening 
our  economic  movement  more  largely  and  more  rap 
idly  than  any  other  people.  We  have,  in  other  words, 
a  higher  energy  of  organization  and  production  than 
any  other  nation.  For  this  reason  we  are  driving 
less  highly  organized  and  less  energetic  peoples  to 
the  wall.  Whether  the  opposition  thus  aroused  can 
be  stilled,  or  whether  it  will  become  desperate  and 
manifest  itself  in  a  political  or  military  manner,  no 
one  can  say.  It  behooves  us,  however,  to  watch  care 
fully,  and  be  always  on  our  guard  both  in  our  conduct 
and  in  our  readiness.  Yet  there  are  still  other  condi 
tions  which  modern  forces  produce  even  graver  than 
this.  The  dangers  threaten  from  sources  widely  dif 
ferent,  even  absolutely  opposed,  and  yet  reacting  upon 
each  other.  The  new  conditions,  while  they  have  raised 
greatly  the  well-being  of  the  community  and  of  the 
average  man,  have  also  caused  an  accumulation  of 
fortunes  and  a  concentration  of  capital  the  like  of 
which  has  never  been  seen  before.  Here  lies  one 
peril,  —  that  of  irresponsible  wealth.  Wealth  which 


26  A   FRONTIER  TOWN 

recognizes  its  duties  and  obligations  is,  in  its  wise  and 
generous  uses,  a  source  of  great  good  to  the  com 
munity.  But  wealth  which,  if  inactive,  neglects  the 
duty  it  owes  to  the  community,  is  deaf  to  the  cry  of 
suffering,  seeks  not  to  remedy  ignorance,  and  turns 
its  back  upon  charity,  or  which,  if  actively  employed, 
aims  to  disregard  the  law,  to  prevent  its  enforcement, 
or  by  purchase  to  control  legislation,  is  irresponsible 
and  therefore  dangerous  to  itself  and  to  others.  Such 
unscrupulous  wealth  breeds  dishonesty,  and  when  dis 
honesty  prevails  the  fabric  is  rotten  and  the  end  is 
not  far  off.  The  American  people  as  a  whole  have 
been  and  are  an  honest  people  and  haters  of  sham 
and  fraud.  Their  future  depends  on  their  remaining 
so.  The  tyranny  of  mere  money,  moreover,  in  society, 
in  politics,  in  business,  or  in  any  of  the  manifold  forms 
of  human  activity,  is  the  coarsest  and  most  vulgar 
tyranny,  as  worship  of  mere  money  is  the  most  de 
graded  worship  that  mankind  has  ever  known. 

Over  against  this  money  danger  lies  the  peril  of  the 
demagogue,  of  the  men  who  would  seek  to  create 
classes  and  then  set  one  class  against  another,  the 
deadliest  enemies  to  our  liberty  and  our  democracy 
that  the  wit  of  man  could  imagine.  Under  the  guise 
of  helping  to  better  the  common  lot,  they  preach  a 
gospel  of  envy  and  hatred.  They  ask  men  to  embark  on 
changes  which  may  possibly  relieve  them  from  the  pain 
of  seeing  any  one  more  fortunate  and  successful  than 


A   FRONTIER   TOWN  27 

themselves,  but  which  will  not  improve,  and  will 
probably  lower  and  injure  their  own  condition.  They 
proclaim  panaceas,  social  and  political,  which  are  as  old 
as  man's  oldest  attempts  at  government,  and  which 
have  an  ancient  record  of  dismal  failure.  They  ask 
us  to  come  to  a  beautiful  country  of  hills  and  woods 
and  meadows,  rich  and  fertile,  with  river  and  brook 
sparkling  in  the  sunlight.  They  point  to  the  prom 
ised  land  lying  far  away  and  dimly  discerned  upon 
the  horizon.  If  you  follow  them  the  vision  fades.  It 
was  but  a  mirage,  and  you  find  yourself  indeed  upon 
a  level  plain,  but  the  plain  is  a  desert,  arid  and  deso 
late,  where  hope  and  ambition  lie  dead,  and  the  bones 
of  those  who  have  gone  before  bleach  upon  the  sands. 

I  am  no  pessimist.  I  am  an  optimist,  and  I  have 
a  boundless  faith  in  my  country  and  her  people.  But 
he  would  be  a  poor  sailor  who  did  not  watch  for  the 
reef  on  one  side  and  the  shoal  upon  the  other,  because 
his  ship  was  leaping  forward  with  every  sail  straining 
before  the  favoring  breeze.  So  it  is  our  duty  that  we 
all,  each  in  his  due  proportion,  seek  to  carry  this  great 
nation  forward  upon  the  voyage  of  life.  We  have 
weathered  many  storms  and  we  fear  them  not.  But 
let  us  not  forget  that  however  conditions  change,  the 
great  underlying  qualities  which  make  and  save  men 
and  nations  do  not  alter. 

I  look  back  upon  the  event  which  we  commem 
orate  to-day.  In  the  great  book  of  the  world's  his- 


28  A   FRONTIER   TOWN 

tory  it  is  but  a  line.  Yet  I  find  there  the  principles 
which  alone  I  believe  will  enable  us  to  strive  and 
conquer  as  in  the  olden  times.  First,  I  see  a  great 
solidarity  of  interest.  Those  men  were  foes  to  an 
archy,  most  hateful  of  all  things  in  human  history. 
They  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder,  united  in  purpose 
and  determined  that  where  they  dwelt  order  should 
reign,  and  not  chaos.  They  met  here  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago  and  did  three  very  memorable 
things.  They  organized  a  town;  they  established 
a  church ;  they  opened  a  school.  The  simple,  every 
day,  instinctive  acts  of  an  American  community,  you 
say.  Yes,  truly,  but  it  is  because  these  have  been, 
hitherto  the  simple  every-day  acts  of  the  American 
people  that  America  is  what  she  is  to-day.  These 
men  of  Greenfield  a  century  and  a  half  ago  recognized 
three  great  facts:  religion,  education,  ordered  gov 
ernment.  They  recognized  that  they  stood  here 
upon  the  "bank  and  shoal  of  time"  for  one  brief 
moment  between  two  eternities.  They  declared  in 
their  simple  fashion  that  the  man  or  nation  who 
did  not  recognize  that  there  was  something  spir 
itual  in  them  higher  than  all  earthly  and  mate 
rial  things,  would  surely  pass  down  into  ruin  and 
darkness ;  and  that  here  pretences  were  worse  than 
nothing,  and  could  never  serve.  They  recognized 
ignorance  as  an  enemy,  and  using  to  the  utmost 
such  modest  means  as  they  had,  they  proposed  that 


A   FRONTIER  TOWN  29 

so  far  as  in  them  lay  it  should  not  be  endured  among 
them.  Lastly  they  recognized  the  vital  need  of  order 
and  government,  and  they  set  up  the  town-meeting 
the  purest  democracy  this  modern  world  has  seen 
or  can  yet  see  in  actual  operation  among  men.  In 
that  town  government  they  embodied,  as  the  great 
central  principle,  the  largest  individual  liberty  com 
patible  with  the  rights  of  all.  They  built  their  town 
on  the  doctrine  that  all  men  must  work  and  bear 
each  one  his  share  of  the  common  burden,  that  the 
fullest  scope  must  then  be  given  to  each  man,  and 
that  each  man  thus  endowed  with  opportunity  must 
make  his  own  fight  and  win  his  own  way,  and  that 
no  one  else  could  or  ought^to  do  it  for  him.  It  was 
the  stern  doctrine  of  a  strong  race,  but  on  that  doc 
trine  the  Unite_d_S.tates  liaye  risen  to  be  what  they 
are  to-day.  The  rights  and  the  good  order  of  the 
community  are  in  the  charge  of  the  government, 
and  the  government  must  guard  and  protect  them. 
But  beyond  that  each  man's  fortune  rests  in  his 
own  hands,  and  he  must  make  it  good.  It  will  be 
a  sorry  day  for  this  republic  when  the  vital  prin 
ciple  ^of  the  town-meeting,  which  has  been  thus  far 
the  vital  principle  of  the  American  people,  is  dis 
regarded  or  set  aside. 

As  we  look  back  into  the  past  it  is  well  to  bear 
these  lessons  in  mind,  for  otherwise  we  are  false  to 
its  teachings.  In  the  problems  and  difficulties  which 


30  A    FRONTIER  TOWN 

gather  around  us,  in  the  future  which  stretches  be 
fore  us  —  a  great  and  splendid  future  as  I  believe  — 
we  cannot  go  far  wrong  if  we  cling  to  the  faith  of 
the  men  who  founded  this  town  a  century  and  a 
half  ago.  They  built  it  on  religion,  on  free  gov 
ernment,  and  on  the  largest  liberty  possible  to  the  in 
dividual  man.  They  sought  no  ready-made  schemes 
to  solve  in  a  moment  all  difficulties  and  cure  all  evils. 
Slowly  and  painfully  they  had  fastened  themselves 
and  their  homes  in  this  valley,  and  they  knew  that 
only  slowly,  by  much  hard  work  and  never  by  idle 
ness  and  short  cuts,  could  they  make  the  condition  of 
the  community  and  of  all  its  members  steadily  and 
permanently  better.  They  sought  always  to  level  up, 
never  to  level  down.  They  looked  facts  in  the  face, 
and  did  the  duty  nearest  to  their  hands  with  all  their 
strength.  They  were  diligent  in  business  and  pros 
pered  as  they  deserved.  But  they  did  not  forget  that 
intelligence  and  character  were  of  more  value  than 
wealth  in  the  long  process  of  the  years.  They  felt, 
dimly  perhaps,  but  none  the  less  earnestly,  that  what 
they  were,  not  what  they  had,  would  count  most  when 
the  final  reckoning  came.  On  the  foundations  they 
laid,  the  great  structure  of  the  United  States  has  been 
reared.  In  the  splendor  of  accomplishment  let  us 
not  forget  the  beliefs  and  the  principles  of  those  who 
placed  the  corner  stone. 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP1 

WHEN  invited  to  write  on  the  subject  of  good  citi 
zenship,  I  felt  a  little  as  I  think  Cowper  felt  when 
Lady  Austin  asked  him  to  write  her  a  poem,  and  gave 
him  "The  Sofa"  for  a  theme,  —  somewhat  at  a  loss 
as  to  what  I  should  say,  although  for  widely  different 
reasons.  The  poet  solved  his  difficulty  by  announc 
ing  in  his  first  line,  "  I  sing  the  sofa,"  and  then  going 
on  with  hundreds  of  verses  in  which  he  sang  of  many 
things,  but  not  of  the  sofa.  Cowper's  subject  was  in 
the  highest  degree  concrete,  and  there  was  nothing  to 
be  said  about  it,  so  that  his  solution  of  his  problem 
was  fairly  obvious.  Good  citizenship,  on  the  contrary, 
is  an  abstract  subject,  upon  which  very  much  has  been 
said  and  written,  which  opens  out  indefinitely,  and 
about  which  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  say  anything 
practical  and  at  the  same  time  to  shun  glittering 
generalities  and  the  repetition  of  commonplaces  as 
to  political  duties  which  are,  as  a  rule,  more  hon 
ored  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observance.  It  is 
also  a  topic  on  which  it  is  painfully  easy  to  be 
come  didactic,  —  something  to  be  sedulously  avoided, 

1  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  the  publishers  of  "  Success  "  for 
permission  to  reprint  here  this  article  on  "  Good  Citizenship." 


32  GOOD    CITIZENSHIP 

because  the  definition  of  a  didactic  poem,  as  one  so 
called  because  it  is  not  a  poem  and  teaches  nothing, 
has  a  wide  application  to  similar  efforts  in  prose. 
There  is,  however,  consolation  for  such  perils  and 
anxieties  in  the  thought  that,  in  our  country,  good 
citizenship  is  a  matter  of  such  vast  import  that  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  say  too  much  about  it,  or  to  repeat 
too  often  the  maxims  and  principles  upon  which  it 
rests  and  which  all  Americans  ought  ever  to  keep  in 
mind. 

Assuming  at  the  outset  that  in  the  United  States 
all  men,  young  and  old,  who  think  at  all,  realize  the 
importance  of  good  citizenship,  the  first  step  toward 
its  attainment  or  its  diffusion  is  to  define  it  accurately  ; 
and  then,  knowing  what  it  is,  we  shall  be  able  intelli 
gently  to  consider  the  best  methods  of  creating  it  and 
spreading  it  abroad.  In  this  case  the  point  of  discus 
sion  and  determination  lies  in  the  first  word  of  the 
title.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  the  second.  The  acci 
dent  of  birth  or  the  certificate  of  a  court  will  make  a 
man  a  citizen  of  the  republic,  entitled  to  take  part  in 
the  government  and  to  have  the  protection  of  that 
government,  wherever  he  may  be.  The  qualifying 
adjective  applied  to  citizenship  is  the  important  thing 
here;  for,  while  the  mere  word  "citizen"  settles  at 
once  a  man's  legal  status  both  under  domestic  and 
international  law,  and  implies  certain  rights  on  his 
part,  and  certain  responsibilities  on  the  part  of  his 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  33 

government  toward  him,  we  must  go  much  further 
if  we  would  define  his  duties  to  the  State  upon  the 
performance  of  which  depends  his  right  to  be  called 
either  good  or  worthy.  Merely  to  live  without  actu 
ally  breaking  the  laws  does  not  constitute  good  citi 
zenship,  except  in  the  narrow  sense  of  contrast  to  those 
who  openly  or  covertly  violate  the  laws  which  they 
have  helped  to  make.  The  word  "  good,"  as  applied 
to  citizenship,  means  something  more  positive  and 
affirmative  than  mere  passive  obedience  to  statutes, 
if  it  has  any  meaning  at  all.  The  good  citizen,  if  he 
would  deserve  the  title,  must  be  one  who  performs  his 
duties  to  the  State,  and  who  in  due  proportion  serves 
his  country.  It  is  when  we  undertake  to  define  those 
duties  and  determine  what  the  due  proportion  of  ser 
vice  is  that  we  approach  the  serious  difficulty  of  the 
subject ;  and  yet  the  duties  and  the  service  to  the 
country  must  be  defined,  for  in  them  lies  all  good 
citizenship,  and  failure  to  render  them  carries  a 
man  beyond  the  pale.  A  man  may  not  be  a  bad 
citizen,  —  he  may  pay  his  taxes  and  commit  no 
statutory  offences ;  but,  if  he  gives  no  service  to 
his  country,  nor  any  help  to  the  community  in 
which  he  lives,  he  cannot  properly  be  called  a  good 
citizen. 

Assuming,  then,  that  good  citizenship  necessarily 
implies  service  of  some  sort  to  the  State,  the  coun 
try,  or  the  public,  it  must  be  understood,  of  course, 


34  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

that  such  service  may  vary  widely  in  amount  or  in 
degree.  The  man  and  woman  who  have  a  family  of 
children,  educate  them,  bring  them  up  honorably  and 
well,  teaching  them  to  love  their  country,  are  good 
citizens,  and  deserve  well  of  the  republic.  The  man 
who,  in  order  to  care  for  his  family  and  give  his  chil 
dren  a  fair  start  in  life,  labors  honestly  and  diligently 
at  his  trade,  profession,  or  business,  and  who  casts  his 
vote  conscientiously  at  all  elections,  adds  to  the 
strength  as  well  as  to  the  material  prosperity  of  the 
country,  and  thus  fulfils  some  of  the  primary  and 
most  important  duties  of  good  citizenship.  Indeed, 
it  may  be  said,  in  passing,  that  he  who  labors  in  any 
way,  who  has  any  intellectual  interest,  who  employs 
his  leisure  for  any  public  end,  —  even  the  man  who 
works  purely  for  selfish  objects,  —  has  one  valuable 
element  of  good  citizenship  to  his  credit  in  the  mere 
fact  of  his  industry ;  for  there  is  nobody  so  detrimental 
in  a  country  like  ours  as  the  mere  idler,  the  mere  seeker 
for  self-amusement,  who  passes  his  time  in  constant 
uncertainty  as  to  how  he  shall  get  rid  of  the  next 
day  or  the  next  hour  of  that  brief  life  which,  how 
ever  short  in  some  cases,  is,  from  every  point  of  view, 
too  long  for  him. 

Bearing  a  family,  casting  a  vote,  leading  a  decent 
life,  and  working  honestly  for  a  livelihood  are,  how 
ever,  primary  and  simple  qualities  in  meritorious  citi 
zenship.  They  are  the  foundation  stones,  no  doubt, 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  35 

but  good   citizenship,  in  its  true  sense,  rises  much 
higher,  and  demands  much  more  than  these.     Here, 
again,  it  becomes  necessary  to  define  one's  meaning 
and  get  rid  of  generalities.     All  men  who  do  good 
work  have  ideals  at  which  they  aim,  dreams  of  what 
they  hope  to  accomplish,  and  all,  especially  those  who 
succeed  most  fully,  fall  far  short  of  their  ideals ;  for 
self-satisfaction  usually  halts  the  advance  and  puts  an 
end  to  achievement.     But  to  corne  short  of  one's  ideal 
is  not  defeat.     "  Not  failure,  but  low  aim,  is  crime." 
The  ideal  cannot  be  set  too  high,  and  then  any  pro 
gress  toward  it  is  a  victory,  and  the  life-work  is  not 
barren  of  results.     This  is  as  true  of  citizenship  as 
of  any  other  great  field  of  human  effort.     The  ideal 
cannot  be  too  lofty,  provided  it  is  compassed  by  com 
mon  sense  and  sound  reason  and  does  not  topple  over 
into  eccentricity.     But  in  order  to  possess  an  ideal 
which  must  be  at  once  sane  and  lofty,  it  is  essential 
to  have  a  standard,  and  that  standard  must  be  clear 
and  sharply  defined,   not  misty  or  confused.      For 
example,  if  we  wish  to  t  teach  our  children  that  loy 
alty  to  the  nation  and  to  the  union  of  States  is  a  funda 
mental  quality  of  any  American  citizenship  worthy  to 
be  called  good,  we  must  not  as  a  people  set  up  a  monu 
ment  to  a  man,  no  matter  how  eminent,  who  won  all 
his  fame  in  an  unsuccessful  effort  to  wreck  liberty  and 
destroy  the  nation. 

Such  matters  emphasize  the  necessity  of  having 


36  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

our  standards  of  citizenship  true  and  correct  as  well 
as  high.  Fortunately,  we  have  not  far  to  seek  for 
examples  which  are  both.  We  have  only  to  look  to 
Washington  and  Lincoln  to  find  the  highest  type  of 
citizenship.  The  greatness  of  these  two  men,  and  the 
vast  work  they  accomplished,  it  may  be  urged,  render 
them  too  exceptional  to  serve  as  practical  models.  I 
do  not  think,  myself,  as  I  have  already  said,  that  it  is 
possible  to  set  one's  ideal  and  one's  standard  too  high, 
and  if  every  American,  in  his  own  sphere,  no  matter 
how  humble  or  obscure,  will  set  himself  to  imitate,  so 
far  as  in  him  lies,  the  character  of  Washington  or  Lin 
coln,  the  world  will  be  made  infinitely  better  thereby. 
But  if  the  two  great  chiefs  seem  too  remote  for  the 
daily  life  of  most  of  us,  other  men  less  highly  placed, 
bat  equally  noble  in  their  conception  of  duty,  can 
readily  be  found  for  our  imitation ;  especially  at  that 
period  of  supreme  trial  of  citizenship  when  the  life  of 
the  country  was  staked  on  the  event  of  war.  From 
that  time  of  storm  and  stress,  I  will  take  such  a  one 
as  the  best  text  I  know  on  the  subject. 

Charles  Russell  Lowell  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
of  the  younger  volunteer  officers  in  the  Civil  War. 
He  had  been  graduated  at  the  head  of  his  class  at 
Harvard  University,  and  had  shown  intellectual  power 
both  in  college  and  afterwards,  in  a  remarkable  degree. 
He  went  into  the  war  at  its  beginning,  and  rose  stead 
ily  and  rapidly  until  he  became  colonel  of  his  regiment, 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  37 

and  was  then  put  in  command  of  a  brigade  in  Sheri 
dan's  army.  In  this  position,  he  took  part  in  the 
battle  of  Cedar  Creek.  His  brigade  bore  the  brunt 
of  the  attack  during  the  morning  hours,  when  the 
Union  army  was  driven  back.  In  a  charge  at  one 
o'clock,  he  was  wounded  in  one  lung  by  a  spent  ball, 
At  three  o'clock,  Sheridan,  who  had  come  up  and  re 
formed  his  lines,  ordered  a  general  advance.  Lowell 
mounted  his  horse  despite  his  wound,  and  charged  at 
the  head  of  his  brigade.  A  ball  through  the  neck 
struck  him  from  the  saddle.  He  fell  into  the  arms 
of  his  aids,  and  was  carried  to  a  farmhouse,  where  he 
died  the  next  morning.  On  October  19,  1864,  while 
Lowell  was  riding  to  his  death  in  battle,  Lincoln  was 
signing  his  commission  as  a  brigadier-general.  He  it 
was,  in  his  uncle's  poem,  - 

Who,  deadly  hurt,  agen 

Flashed  on  afore  the  charge's  thunder 
Tippin'  with  fire  the  bolt  of  men 

Thet  rived  the  Rebel  line  asunder. 

Sheridan  said  of  him :  "  I  do  not  think  there  was 
a  quality  I  could  have  added  to  Lowell.  He  was  the 
perfection  of  a  man  and  soldier."  So  he  stands  out 
for  us  in  the  glory  of  youth,  for  he  was  not  thirty 
years  old  when  he  was  killed,  a  splendid  figure  in  the 
full  tide  of  success  as  a  soldier,  giving  all  to  his  coun 
try,  even  to  the  last  great  gift  of  his  life.  Such  a 
man's  conception  of  citizenship,  of  which  he  was  him- 


38  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

self  so  fine  an  illustration,  is  worth  consideration,  and 
we  are  very  fortunate  in  possessing  it.  About  a  month 
before  his  death,  on  September  10,  1864,  he  wrote  as 
follows  to  a  friend,  also  an  officer  in  the  army,  who 
was  at  home,  wounded  : 

"  I  hope  that  you  have  outgrown  all  foolish  ambitions, 
and  are  now  content  to  become  a  '  useful  citizen.'  Don't 
grow  rich  ;  if  you  once  begin,  you  will  find  it  much  more 
difficult  to  be  a  useful  citizen.  Don't  seek  office,  but  don't 
'  disremember '  that  a  useful  citizen  always  holds  his  time, 
his  trouble,  his  money,  and  his  life,  ready  at  the  hint  of  his 
country.  A  useful  citizen  is  a  mighty  unpretending  hero  ; 
but  we  are  not  going  to  have  any  country  very  long  unless 
such  heroism  is  developed.  There !  what  a  stale  sermon 
I  'm  preaching !  But,  being  a  soldier,  it  does  seem  to  me 
that  I  should  like  nothing  else  so  well  as  being  a  useful 
citizen,  —  well,  trying  to  be  one,  I  mean.  I  shall  stay  in 
the  service,  of  course,  till  the  war  is  over,  or  till  I  'm  dis 
abled;  but  then  I  look  forward  to  a  pleasanter  career.  I 
believe  I  have  lost  all  my  ambition.  I  don't  think  I  would 
turn  my  hand  to  be  a  distinguished  chemist  or  a  famous 
mathematician.  All  I  now  care  for  is  to  be  a  useful  citizen 
with  money  enough  to  buy  bread  and  firewood,  and  to  teach 
my  children  to  ride  on  horseback  and  look  strangers  in  the 
face,  especially  southern  strangers." 

There  was  a  man  who  had  achieved  high  distinc 
tion  as  a  soldier,  to  whom  still  higher  distinction 
seemed  sure,  and  yet  out  of  the  fiery  ordeal  of  war, 
where  he  had  done  and  borne  so  much,  he  brings,  as 
his  ambition  and  his  lesson,  only  the  desire  to  be  a 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  39 

"useful  citizen/'  to  be  of  broad,  unselfish  service 
to  his  country  and  mankind. 

Good  citizenship  demands,  therefore,  something 
active:  in  order  to  be  attained,  the  man  must  be 
useful  to  his  country  and  to  his  fellow-men,  and 
on  this  usefulness  all  else  depends.  Fortunately,  it 
is  possible  to  be  useful  in  many  ways.  "  Hold  your 
life,  your  time,  your  money,"  said  Lowell,  "  always 
ready  at  the  hint  of  your  country."  To  him  it  was 
given  to  make  the  last  great  sacrifice.  In  time  of 
war,  the  usefulness  of  man  is  plain ;  he  has  but  the 
simple  duty  of  offering  his  services  to  his  country  in 
the  field.  But  the  service  of  war,  if  more  glorious, 
more  dangerous,  and  larger  in  peril  and  sacrifice  than 
any  other,  is  also  the  most  obvious.  When  the  coun 
try  is  involved  in  war,  the  first  duty  of  a  citizen  is 
clear,  —  he  must  fight  for  the  flag;  or  if,  because 
of  age  or  physical  infirmity,  he  is  unable  to  fight, 
he  must  support  those  who  do,  and  sustain,  in  all 
ways  possible,  the  nation's  cause.  Good  citizenship 
implies  constant  readiness  to  obey  our  country's 
call. 

Less  dangerous,  less  glorious,  rarely  demanding 
the  last  sacrifice,  the  time  of  peace  is  no  less  in 
sistent  than  the  exceptional  time  of  war  in  its  de 
mands  for  good  citizenship.  How  shall  a  man,  in 
time  of  peace,  fulfil  Lowell's  requirement  of  being 
a  useful  citizen  ?  He  may  do  it  in  many  ways, 


40  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

for  usefulness  as  a  citizen  is  not  confined,  by 
any  means,  to  public  office,  although  it  must,  in 
some  form  or  other,  promote  the  general  as  dis 
tinguished  from  the  individual  good.  A  man  may 
be  a  good  citizen  in  the  ordinary  sense  by  fulfill 
ing  the  fundamental  conditions  of  honest  labor,  car 
ing  for  his  family,  observing  law,  and  expressing 
his  opinion  upon  governmental  measures  at  the 
time  of  election.  But  this  does  not  make  him  a 
good  citizen  in  the  larger  sense  of  usefulness.  To 
be  a  useful  citizen,  he  must  do  something  for  the 
public  service  which  is  over  and  above  his  work 
for  himself  or  his  family.  It  may  be  performed  — 
this  public  service — through  the  medium  of  the 
man's  profession  or  occupation,  or  wholly  apart  and 
aside  from  it.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  mere 
production  of  a  great  work  of  art  or  literature  which 
may  be  a  joy  and  benefaction  to  humanity  neces 
sarily  involves  the  idea  of  public  service  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  are  considering  it  here.  It  may  or 
it  may  not  do  so.  Turner's  art  is  a  great  posses 
sion  for  the  world  to  have,  but  his  bequest  to  the 
National  Gallery  was  a  public  service.  Regnault's 
portrait  of  Prim  was  a  noble  picture,  but  the  artist's 
death  as  a  soldier  in  defence  of  Paris  was  the  high 
est  public  service.  The  literature  of  the  English 
language  would  be  much  poorer  if  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  had  not  lived,  —  his  verse,  his  prose,  his  art 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  41 

could  ill  be  spared  when  the  accounts  of  the  nine 
teenth  century  are  made  up,  —  yet  it  would  be  im 
possible  to  say  that  Poe  was  a  useful  citizen,  highly 
as  we  may  rate  and  ought  to  rate  his  strange  genius. 
On  the  other  hand,  Walt  Whitman,  who  consecrated 
so  much  of  his  work  as  a  poet  to  his  country,  was 
eminently  a  useful  citizen  of  high  patriotism,  for 
he  labored  in  the  hospitals  and  among  the  soldiers 
to  help  his  country  and  his  fellow-men  without 
any  thought  of  self  or  self-interest,  or  even  of  his 
art.  So  Ealph  Waldo  Emerson  was  a  great  and 
useful  citizen,  as  well  as  a  great  writer  and  poet, 
giving  freely  of  his  time  and  thought  and  fame 
to  moulding  opinion  and  to  the  service  of  his  coun 
try.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Holmes  and  of  Long 
fellow,  of  Whittier  and  of  Lowell,  of  Bancroft  and  of 
Motley.  In  any  event,  their  work  would  have  taken 
high  place  in  the  literature  of  the  United  States  and 
of  the  English-speaking  people ;  in  any  event  it  would 
have  brought  pleasure  to  mankind,  and,  in  Dr.  John 
son's  phrase,  would  have  helped  us  to  enjoy  life  or 
taught  us  to  endure  it.  But  over  and  above  their 
work  they  were  useful  citizens  in  a  high  degree.  Their 
art  was  ever  at  the  service  of  their  country,  of  a 
great  cause,  and  of  their  fellow-men.  They  helped 
to  direct  and  create  public  opinion,  and  in  the  hour 
of  stress  they  sustained  the  national  cause  with  all  the 
great  strength  which  their  fame  and  talents  gave 


Of    THf 

UNIVERSITY 

or 


42  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

them.  With  Winthrop,  their  watchword  was  :  "  Our 
country,  —  whether  bounded  by  the  St.  John's  or  the 
Sabine,  or  however  otherwise  bounded  or  described, 
and  be  the  measurement  more  or  less, —  still  our 
country." 

The  poet  and  the  artist,  the  scholar  and  the  man 
of  letters  are,  perhaps,  as  remote  in  their  lives  and 
pursuits  from  the  generally  recognized  paths  of 
public  service  as  any  men  in  a  community,  yet  these 
few  examples  show  not  only  what  they  have  done, 
but  also  what  they  can  do,  and  how  they  have  met 
the  responsibilities  which  their  high  intellectual  gifts 
and  large  influence  imposed  upon  them.  There  are 
also  professions  which  involve  in  their  pursuit  pub 
lic  service  of  a  very  noble  kind.  Clergymen  and 
physicians  give  freely  to  the  public,  to  their  country, 
and  to  the  community  in  which  they  live,  their 
time,  their  money,  their  skill,  their  influence,  and 
their  sympathy.  It  is  all  done  for  others  without 
hope  or  thought  of  self-interest  or  reward.  It  is 
all  done  so  naturally,  so  much  in  the  usual  course 
of  their  activities,  that  the  world  scarcely  notes, 
and  certainly  does  not  stop  to  realize,  that  the 
great  surgeon  exercising  his  skill,  which  will  com 
mand  any  sum  from  the  rich,  without  money  and 
without  price,  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  in  the 
hospitals,  or  the  clergyman  laboring  among  the 
miseries  of  the  city  slums,  is  doing  public  service 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  43 

of  the  highest  kind,  and  is  pre-eminently  the  use 
ful  citizen  who  goes  beyond  the  limits  of  personal 
or  family  interest  to  work  for  the  general  good, — 
to  promote  the  public  welfare  in  every  possible 
way. 

The  man  of  business  who  devotes  his  surplus 
wealth  to  the  promotion  of  education  or  of  art, 
or  to  the  alleviation  of  suffering,  is  doing  public 
service.  So,  too,  among  business  men  and  lawyers 
and  journalists,  among  the  men  engaged  in  the 
most  energetic  and  active  pursuits,  we  find  those 
who  are  always  ready  to  serve  on  committees  to 
raise  money  for  charitable  or  public  purposes,  to 
advance  important  measures  of  legislation,  and 
to  reform  the  evils  which  are  especially  rife  in 
great  municipalities.  To  do  this  they  give  their 
money,  as  well  as  their  time  and  strength,  which 
are  of  more  value  than  money,  to  objects  wholly  out 
side  the  labors  by  which  they  support  themselves  or 
their  families,  or  gratify  their  own  tastes  or  am 
bitions.  In  this  fashion  they  meet  the  test  of  what 
constitutes  usefulness  in  a  citizen  by  rendering  to 
the  country,  to  the  public,  and  to  their  fellow-citi 
zens,  service  which  has  no  personal  reward  in  it,  but 
which  advances  the  good  of  others  and  contributes  to 
the  welfare  of  the  community. 

Thus  in  divers  ways,  only  indicated  here,  are  men 
of  all  conditions  and  occupations  able  to  render  ser- 


44  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

vice  and  benefit  their  fellow-citizens.  But  all  these 
ways  so  far  suggested  are,  however  beneficial,  indirect 
as  compared  with  those  usually  associated  in  every 
one's  mind  with  the  idea  of  public  service.  When 
we  use  the  word  "citizen/'  or  "citizenship,"  the  first 
thought  is  of  the  man  in  relation  to  the  state,  as  the 
very  word  itself  implies.  It  is  in  that  connection  that 
we  first  think  of  service  when  we  speak  of  a  public- 
spirited  or  useful  citizen.  There  are  many  other  pub 
lic  services,  as  has  been  said,  just  as  valuable,  just 
as  desirable,  very  often  more  immediately  beneficial  to 
humanity  than  those  rendered  directly  to  the  State 
or  to  public  affairs,  but  there  is  no  other  which  is 
quite  so  imperative,  quite  so  near,  quite  so  obvious 
in  the  way  of  duty  as  the  performance  of  the  func 
tions  belonging  to  each  man  as  a  member  of  the 
State.  In  our  country  this  is  more  acutely  the  case 
than  anywhere  else,  for  this  is  a  democracy,  and  the 
government  depends  upon  the  action  of  the  people 
themselves.  We  have  the  government,  municipal, 
state,  or  national,  which  we  make  ourselves.  If  it 
is  good  it  is  because  we  make  it  so.  If  it  is  bad  we 
may  think  it  is  not  what  we  want,  and  that  we  are 
not  responsible  for  it,  but  it  is  none  the  less  just 
what  it  is  simply  because  we  will  not  take  the  trouble 
necessary  to  improve  it.  There  is  no  greater  fallacy 
than  the  comfortable  statement  so  frequently  heard, 
that  we  owe  misgovernment,  when  it  occurs  any- 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  45 

where,  to  the  politicians.  If  the  politicians  are  bad, 
and  yet  have  power,  it  is  because  we  give  it  to  them. 
They  are  not  a  force  of  nature  with  which  there  is  no 
contending ;  they  are  of  our  own  creation,  and,  if  we 
disapprove  of  them  and  yet  leave  them  in  power,  it 
is  because  we  do  not  care  to  take  the  trouble,  some 
times  the  excessive  trouble,  needful  to  be  rid  of  them. 
People  in  this  country,  as  in  other  countries,  and  as 
in  all  periods  of  history,  have,  as  a  rule,  the  govern 
ment  they  deserve.  The  politicians,  so  commonly 
denounced  as  a  class,  sometimes  justly  and  sometimes 
unjustly,  have  only  the  advantage  of  taking  more 
pains  than  others  to  get  what  they  want,  and  to  hold 
power  in  piiblic  affairs.  To  this  the  reply  is  always 
made  that  the  average  man  engaged  in  business,  or 
in  a  profession,  has  not  the  time  to  give  to  politics 
which  the  professional  politician  devotes  to  it.  That 
excuse  begs  the  question.  If  the  average  man,  active, 
and  constantly  occupied  in  his  own  affairs,  cannot 
find  time  to  choose  the  men  he  desires  to  represent 
him  and  perform  his  public  business  for  him,  then 
either  democracy  is  a  failure,  or  else  he  can  find  time 
if  he  chooses ;  and,  if  he  does  not  choose,  he  has  no 
right  to  complain.  But  democracy  is  not  a  failure. 
After  all  allowances  and  deductions  are  made,  it  is 
the  best  form  of  government  in  the  world  to-day,  and 
better  than  any  of  its  predecessors.  The  fault  is  not 
in  the  system,  even  if  there  are  in  it,  as  in  all  other 


46  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

things  human,  shortcomings  and  failures,  but  in  those 
who  operate  the  system ;  and,  in  a  democracy,  those 
who  in  the  last  analysis  operate  the  system  are  all 
the  people.  It  must  always  be  remembered,  also, 
that  in  representative  government  all  the  people,  and 
not  some  of  the  people,  are  to  be  represented.  In  a 
country  so  vast  in  area  and  so  large  in  population  as 
the  United  States,  constituencies  are  very  diverse  in 
their  qualities  and  there  are  many  elements.  Some 
constituencies  are  truly  represented  by  men  very  alien 
to  the  standards  and  aspirations  of  other  constituen 
cies.  All,  however,  are  entitled  to  representation, 
and  the  aggregate  representation  stands  for  the  whole 
people.  If  the  representation  in  the  aggregate  is 
sound,  and  honestly  representative,  then  the  theory  of 
democracy  is  carried  out,  and  the  quality  of  the  rep 
resentation  depends  on  the  people  represented. 

^There  are  two  things,  then,  to  be  determined  by 
the  people  themselves,  —  the  general  policy  of  the 
government,  and  the  persons  who  are  to  carry  that 
policy  into  effect  and  to  perform  the  work  of  admin 
istration.  To  attain  the  first  object,  those  who  are 
pledged  to  one  policy  or  another  must  be  elected,  and 
the  persons  thus  united  in  support  of  certain  general 
principles  of  policy  or  government  constitute  a  polit 
ical  party.  The  second  object,  the  choice  of  suitable 
persons  as  representatives  of  a  given  political  party, 
must  be  reached  by  all  the  people  who  support  that 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  47 

party  taking  part  in  the  selection.  In  the  first  case, 
the  general  policy  is  settled  by  the  election  of  a  party 
to  power;  in  the  second,  the  individual  representa 
tive  is  picked  out  by  his  fellow-members  of  the  same 
party. 

This,  in  broad  terms,  describes  the  field  for  the 
exertions  of  the  citizen  in  the  domain  of  politics,  and 
the  methods  by  which  he  can  make  his  exertions 
most  effective.  I  am  aware  that  in  this  description 
I  have  assumed  the  existence  of  political  parties  as 
not  only  necessary,  but  also  desirable.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  enter  into  a  history  or  discussion  of  the 
party  system.  Suffice  it  to  say  here  that  all  experi 
ence  shows  that  representative  government  has  been 
a  full  success  only  among  the  English-speaking  people 
of  the  world,  with  whom  the  system  of  a  party  of 
government  and  a  party  of  opposition  has  always 
prevailed.  In  other  countries  the  failures  or  serious 
shortcomings  of  representative  government  are  at 
tributed  by  good  judges  and  observers,  both  native 
and  foreign,  largely  to  the  absence  of  the  party  sys 
tem  as  practised  by  us.  The  alternative  of  two  par 
ties,  one  carrying  on  the  government  and  the  other 
in  opposition  ready  to  take  its  place,  is  the  system  of 
groups  or  factions  and  consequent  coalitions  among 
two  or  more  of  the  groups  in  order  to  obtain  a  par 
liamentary  majority.  Government  by  group-coalitions 
has  proved  to  be  irresponsible,  unstable,  capricious, 


48  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

and  short-lived.  Under  the  system  of  two  parties, 
continuity,  experience,  and,  best  of  all,  responsibility, 
without  which  all  else  is  worthless,  have  been  ob 
tained.  That  there  are  evils  in  the  party  system 
carried  to  the  extreme  of  blind  or  unscrupulous  par 
tisanship,  no  one  denies.  But  this  is  a  comparative 
world,  and  the  party  system  is  shown,  by  the  experi 
ence  of  two  hundred  years,  to  be  the  best  yet  devised 
for  the  management  and  movement  of  a  represen 
tative  government.  Nothing,  in  fact,  can  be  more 
shallow,  or  show  a  more  profound  ignorance  of  his 
tory,  than  the  proposition,  so  often  reiterated  as  if  it 
were  a  truism,  that  a  political  party  is  something 
wholly  evil,  and  that  to  call  any  one  a  party  man  is 
sufficient  to  condemn  him.  Every  great  measure, 
every  great  war,  every  great  reform,  which  together 
have  made  the  history  of  England  since  the  days  of 
William  of  Orange,  and  of  the  United  States  since 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  has  been  carried  on 
and  carried  through  by  an  organized  political  party. 
Until  some  better  way  is  discovered  and  proved  to  be 
better,  the  English-speaking  people  will  continue  to 
use  the  party  system  with  which,  on  the  whole,  they 
have  done  so  well  so  far,  and  the  citizen  aiming  at 
usefulness  must  therefore  accept  the  party  system  as 
one  of  the  conditions  under  which  he  is  to  act. 

The  most  effective  way  in  which  to  act  is  through 
the  medium  of  a  party,  and  as  a  member  of  one  of 


GOOD    CITIZENSHIP  49 

the  two  great  parties,  because  in  this  way  a  man  can 
make  his  influence  felt  not  only  in  the  final  choice 
between  parties,  but  in  the  selection  of  candidates 
and  in  the  determination  of  party  policies  as  well. 
This  does  not  mean  that  a  man  can  be  effective  only 
by  allying  himself  with  a  party,  but  that  he  can  in 
that  way  be  most  effective  both  in  action  and  in  in 
fluence.  Many  there  must  be  unattached  to  either  of 
the  parties,  whose  mental  condition  is  such  that  they 
can  neither  submit  to  discipline,  nor  yield  nor  compro 
mise  their  own  views  in  order  to  promote  the  general 
principles  in  which  they  believe,  all  which  conditions 
or  sacrifices  are  necessary  in  order  to  maintain  party 
organization.  These  are  the  voters  who  shift  their 
votes  if  not  their  allegiance ;  and,  if  it  were  not  for 
them,  one  party,  as  politics  are  usually  hereditary, 
would  remain  almost  continually  in  power,  and  the 
results  would  be  extremely  unfortunate.  It  is  the 
necessity  of  appealing  to  these  voters  which  exercises 
a  restraining  effect  upon  the  great  party  organiza 
tions.  But  these  men  who  vote  as  they  please  at 
the  minute,  and  yet  usually  describe  themselves  by 
a  party  name,  and  as  a  rule  act  with  one  party  or 
the  other,  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the 
professional  independent,  whose  independence  consists 
in  nothing  but  bitterly  opposing  and  seeking  to  de 
feat  one  party  at  all  times.  This  independent  is  the 
worst  of  partisans,  for  he  is  guided  solely  by  hatred 


50  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

of  a  party  or  of  individuals,  and  never  supports  any 
thing  because  be  believes  in  it,  but  merely  as  an 
instrument  of  destruction  or  revenge.  Equally  in 
effective,  even  if  less  malevolent,  is  the  perpetual 
fault-finder,  whether  in  conversation  or  in  the  news 
papers.  He  calls  himself  a  critic,  blandly  unaware 
that  unrelieved  invective  is  no  more  criticism  than 
unrelieved  laudation,  and  that  true  criticism,  whether 
of  a  book,  a  work  of  art,  a  public  measure,  or  a  public 
man,  seeks  to  point  out  merits  as  well  as  defects,  in 
order  to  balance  one  against  the  other,  and  thus  assist 
in  the  proper  conduct  of  life.  The  real  and  honest 
critic  and  the  genuine  independent  in  politics  are 
most  valuable,  for  they  are  engaged  in  the  advance 
ment  of  principles  in  which  they  believe,  and  will  aid 
those  and  work  with  those  who  are  laboring  toward 
the  same  ends.  But  the  professional  independent, 
whose  sole  purpose  is  to  defeat  some  one  party,  or 
certain  specified  persons  whom  he  hates,  no  matter 
what  that  party  or  those  persons  may  be  doing,  the 
critic  who  only  finds  fault,  the  professional  philan 
thropist  or  reformer  who  uses  his  philanthropy  or 
reform  solely  to  vilify  his  country  or  his  government, 
and  to  bring  shame  or  sorrow  to  some  of  his  fellow- 
citizens,  so  that  his  personal  malice  may  be  gratified, 
—  these  men  advance  nothing,  for  their  attitude  is 
pure  negation,  and  they  generally  do  great  harm  to 
any  cause  which  they  espouse.  They  are  not  useful 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  51 

citizens ;  but,  as  a  rule,  to  the  extent  of  their  power, 
which  luckily  is  not  great,  they  are  positively 
injurious. 

The  serious  difficulty,  however,  is  not  with  those 
who  give  a  false  direction  to  their  political  activities, 
but  with  the  political  indifference  which  most  good 
citizens  exhibit,  except  on  rare  occasions  when  some 
great  question  is  at  issue  which  stirs  the  entire  com 
munity  to  its  depths.  Yet  it  is  in  the  ordinary  every 
day  affairs  of  politics  that  the  attention  of  good 
citizens  is  most  necessary.  It  is  then  that  those  who 
constitute  the  undesirable  and  objectionable  elements 
get  control,  for  they  are  always  on  the  watch,  and  to 
defeat  them  it  is  essential  that  those  who  desire  good 
and  honest  government  should  be  on  the  watch,  too. 
The  idea  that  they  cannot  spare  the  time  without 
detriment  to  their  own  affairs  is  a  mistake.  The  time 
actually  consumed  in  going  to  a  caucus  or  a  conven 
tion  is  not  a  serious  loss.  What  is  most  needed  is  to 
follow  the  course  of  public  affairs  closely,  to  under 
stand  what  is  being  done,  and  what  the  various  can 
didates  represent ;  and  then,  when  the  time  for  the 
vote  in  the  caucus  or  at  the  polls  arrives,  a  citizen 
interested  only  in  good  government,  or  in  the  promo 
tion  of  a  given  policy,  knows  what  he  wants  and  can 
act  intelligently.  His  weakness  arises,  almost  inva 
riably,  from  the  fact  that  he  does  not  rouse  himself 
until  the  last  minute,  that  he  does  not  know  just 


52  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

what  he  wants,  or  with  whom  to  act,  and  that,  there 
fore,  he  is  taken  by  surprise  and  beaten  by  those  who 
know  exactly  what  they  want  and  precisely  what 
they  mean  to  do.  Here,  then,  is  where  the  useful 
citizen  is  most  needed  in  politics,  and  his  first  duty  is 
to  understand  his  subject,  which  a  little  thought  and 
observation  day  by  day  will  enable  him  to  do.  Let 
him  inform  himself,  and  keep  always  informed  as  to 
men  and  measures,  and  he  will  find  that  he  has  ample 
time  to  give  when  the  moment  of  action  arrives. 

No  man  can  hope  to  be  a  useful  citizen  in  the  broad 
est  sense,  in  the  United  States,  unless  he  takes  a 
continuous  and  intelligent  interest  in  politics,  and 
a  full  share  not  only  in  the  elections,  but  also  in 
the  primary  operations  which  determine  the  choice 
of  candidates.  For  this  every  one  has  time  enough, 
and,  if  he  says  that  he  has  not,  it  is  because  he  is 
indifferent  when  he  ought  to  be  intensely  and  con 
stantly  interested.  If  he  follows  public  affairs  from 
day  to  clay,  and,  thus  informed,  acts  with  his  friends 
and  those  who  think  as  he  does  at  the  caucus  and 
the  polls,  he  will  make  his  influence  fully  felt  and  will 
meet  completely  the  test  of  good  citizenship.  It  is 
not  essential  to  take  office.  For  not  doing  so,  the 
excuse  of  lack  of  time  and  the  demands  of  more 
immediate  private  interest  may  be  valid.  But  it 
would  be  well  if  every  man  could  have,  for  a  short 
period,  at  least,  some  experience  in  the  actual  work 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  53 

of  government  in  his  city,  State,  or  nation,  even  if 
he  has  no  intention  of  following  a  political  career. 
Such  an  experience  does  more  to  broaden  a  man's 
knowledge  of  the  difficulties  of  public  administra 
tion  than  anything  else.  It  helps  him  to  under 
stand  how  he  can  practically  attain  that  which  he 
thinks  is  best  for  the  State,  and,  most  important 
of  all,  it  enables  him  to  act  with  other  men,  and 
to  judge  justly  those  who  are  doing  the  work  of 
public  life.  Public  men,  it  is  true,  seek  the  offices 
they  hold  in  order  to  gratify  their  ambition,  or  be 
cause  they  feel  that  they  can  do  good  work  in  the 
world  in  that  way.  But  it  is  too  often  overlooked 
that  the  great  majority  of  those  who  hold  public 
office  are  governed  by  a  desire  to  do  what  is 
best  for  the  country  or  the  State,  as  they  under 
stand  it.  Ambition  may  be  the  motive  which 
takes  most  men  into  public  life,  but  the  work 
which  is  done  by  these  men  after  they  attain  their 
ambition  is,  as  a  rule,  disinterested  and  public- 
spirited.  I  have  lately  seen  the  proposition  ad 
vanced  that,  in  the  last  forty  years,  American  public 
men,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  have  said  nothing 
important  because  they  were  so  ignorant  of  their  sub 
ject,  and  have  done  nothing  of  moment  because 
the  country  was  really  governed  by  professors,  men 
of  business,  scientists,  presidents  of  learned  societies, 
and  especially  by  gentlemen  who  feel  that  they  ought 


54  GOOD   CITIZENSHIP 

to  be  in  high  office,  but  have  never  been  able  to  get 
any  sufficient  number  of  their  fellow-citizens  to  agree 
with  them  in  that  feeling.  With  the  exception  of 
the  last,  all  these  different  classes  in  the  community 
exercise  a  strong  influence  on  public  opinion,  the 
course  of  public  affairs,  and  public  policy.  Yet  it 
is  none  the  less  true  that  the  absolute  conduct  of 
government  is  in  the  hands  of  those  who  hold  high 
representative  or  administrative  office. 

The  personal  qualities  and  individual  abilities  of 
public  men,  have  a  profound  effect  upon  the  meas 
ures  and  policies  which  make  the  history  and  de 
termine  the  fate  of  the  nation.  Often  they  originate 
the  measures  or  the  policies,  and  they  always  modify 
and  formulate  them.  Therefore  it  is  essential  that 
every  man  who  desires  to  be  a  useful  citizen,  should 
not  only  take  part  in  moulding  public  sentiment,  in 
selecting  candidates,  and  in  winning  elections  for  the 
party  or  the  cause  in  which  he  believes,  but  he  should 
also  be  familiar  with  the  characters,  abilities,  and 
records  of  the  men  who  must  be  the  instruments 
by  which  the  policies  are  to  be  carried  out  and  the 
government  administered.  There  are  many  ways, 
therefore,  in  which  men  may  benefit  and  aid  their 
fellow-men,  and  serve  the  State  in  which  they  live, 
but  it  is  open  to  all  men  alike  to  help  to  govern  the 
country  and  direct  its  course  along  the  passing  years. 
In  the  performance  of  this  duty  in  the  ways  I  have 


GOOD   CITIZENSHIP  55 

tried  to  indicate,  any  man  can  attain  to  good  cit 
izenship  of  the  highest  usefulness.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  our  success  as  a  nation  depends 
upon  the  useful  citizens  who  act  intelligently  and 
effectively  in  politics. 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED 
STATES1 

IN  discussions  concerning  the  political  development 
of  the  United  States  it  is  almost  always  asserted  that 
the  growth  and  extension  of  the  power  of  the  Senate 
has  been  one  of  the  most  marked  and  significant  feat 
ures  of  our  history.  It  is  also  one  of  the  common 
places  of  a  certain  kind  of  criticism  to  declare  with 
much  gloomy  foreboding,  at  some  period  in  each  suc 
ceeding  administration,  that  the  Senate  has  usurped 
and  is  constantly  usurping  power,  with  great  conse 
quent  peril  to  our  political  health  and  to  the  balance 
of  the  government.  That  the  power  of  the  Senate 
is  very  great,  and  that  it  has  developed  to  its  present 
proportions  since  the  organization  of  the  government 
is  unquestionably  true.  But  it  is  equally  true  that 
there  has  been  no  usurpation  by  the  Senate  of  power 
not  rightfully  belonging  to  it,  and  no  one,  I  venture 
to  think,  would  make  this  charge  or  criticism  who  had 
studied  the  origin  of  the  Senate  or  considered  carefully 
the  powers  conferred  upon  it  by  the  Constitution. 

To  understand  the  Senate  as  it  is  to-day,  therefore, 
and  to  comprehend  its  meaning  and  functions  in  our 

1  I  am  permitted  to  reprint  in  this  volume  this  essay  upon  "  The 
Senate  "  through  the  kindness  of  Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES        57 

body  politic,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  appreciate 
fully,  and  to  know  well  just  how  and  why  the  Senate 
was  created,  and  with  what  powers  its  creators  en 
dowed  it.  By  this  comparative  method,  and  in  this 
way  alone,  can  we  learn  what  the  Senate  is  now,  after 
more  than  a  century  of  existence. 

The  framers  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  had  no  serious  difficulty  in  agreeing  that 
there  should  be  two  houses  in  the  legislative  body 
of  the  new  government.  Even  if  they  all  had  not 
been  wedded  to  the  double-chamber  system  by  tra 
dition,  experience,  and  their  own  clear,  good  sense, 
there  was  no  such  success  apparent  in  Franklin's 
single-chamber  experiment  in  Pennsylvania,  then 
drawing  to  an  unlamented  end,  or  in  that  of 
Georgia,  or  in  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation, 
as  to  convert  them  to  this  new  doctrine,  or  even 
to  make  its  nominal  supporters  very  solicitous  for 
its  extension.  Such  opposition  as  there  was  to  two 
chambers  came  solely  from  the  fact  that  the  single 
chamber  was  thought  to  involve  the  vital  question  of 
the  equality  of  the  States,  as  against  the  national  prin 
ciple  which  was  sure  to  prevail,  wholly  or  in  part,  with 
two  chambers.  There  was  no  real  support  for  a  single 
chamber  purely  on  its  merits,  and,  as  has  been  said, 
there  was  no  serious  difficulty  in  agreeing  upon  two 
houses.  With  that  point  passed,  however,  trouble 
began,  and  so  serious  was  it  that,  as  every  one 


58        THE   SENATE   OF   THE    LNITED   STATES 

knows,  the  convention  came  near  dissolution,  and  the 
whole  Constitution  was  almost  wrecked  upon  the 
question  as  to  the  basis  of  representation  in  the  new 
Congress.  The  situation  was  saved  by  the  adop 
tion  of  the  principle  laid  down  by  Roger  Sherman 
and  Oliver  Ellsworth,  that  the  only  road  to  suc 
cess  lay  through  grafting  the  new  government  upon 
the  State  governments ;  and  following  out  this  prin 
ciple  the  House  was  made  to  represent  population, 
and  the  Senate  the  separate  States.  This  wras  the 
great  compromise  of  the  Constitution,  the  "  Con 
necticut  Compromise,"  as  it  is  usually  called,  but 
it  really  was  the  solution  of  the  most  crucial  prob 
lem  presented  to  the  framers  of  the  Constitution. 
Without  it  there  probably  would  have  been  no 
Constitution,  and  if  one  had  been  made  with  the 
representation  of  both  Houses  based  on  population, 
at  the  first  attempt  of  the  large  States  to  control 
the  government,  the  Union  would,  at  the  very  out 
set,  have  gone  to  pieces.  The  Senate,  therefore,  was 
regarded  as  the  key-stone  of  the  new  scheme,  and  the 
framers  showed  their  belief  in  its  overwhelming  im 
portance  by  providing  that  the  basis  of  representation 
in  the  Senate  should  not  be  altered  except  by  the  con 
sent  of  every  State,  while  every  other  clause  of  the 
Constitution  could  be  amended  by  a  two-thirds  vote 
of  Congress  followed  by  a  ratification  by  three-fourths 
of  the  States. 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES         59 

The  reason  for  fixing  the  basis  of  representation  for 
the  Senate  so  firmly  in  the  Constitution  that  so  far 
as  possible  it  should  be  beyond  change  is  obvious, 
although  often  overlooked.  The  Convention  which 
framed  the  Constitution  voted  by  States,  as  did  the 
Continental  Congress  and  the  Congress  of  the  Confed 
eration.  All  sovereign  powers  of  every  kind,  there 
fore,  were  in  possession  of  the  States  as  such,  and 
consequently  every  power  which  was  given  in  the 
new  Constitution  to  the  people  of  the  Union  at  large 
was  given  by  the  States ;  every  power  which  was 
reserved  was  reserved  to  the  States ;  and  all  powers 
conferred  upon  the  Senate  were  intended  to  guard 
and  preserve  the  influence  and  authority  of  the  States 
in  the  new  government.  Hence,  in  the  formation  of 
the  Senate  the  States  were  retaining  for  themselves 
all  the  powers  which  they  believed  needful  for  their 
safety,  and,  as  everything  was  theirs  to  give  or  to 
withhold,  they  were  naturally  liberal  in  their  endow 
ment  of  the  body  which  was  to  continue  to  represent 
them  under  a  system  where  they  necessarily  parted 
with  so  much. 

It  was  for  these  reasons  that  the  convention  con 
ferred  upon  the  Senate  both  executive  and  judicial,  as 
well  as  legislative  powers.  The  executive  was  to 
be  elected  by  the  people  at  large,  and  the  executive 
power,  therefore,  passed  away  from  the  States,  but 
the  States  took  pains  to  limit  this  great  gift  by  con- 


60         THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 

f erring  upon  the  Senate  the  power  to  reject  all  nom 
inations  to  office  made  by  the  President,  and  by 
granting  to  the  Senate  an  equal  and  co-ordinate  part 
in  making  all  treaties  with  foreign  nations.  These 
sovereign  powers  of  appointing  executive  officers  and 
of  treating  with  foreign  nations  were,  at  the  time  of 
the  Philadelphia  Convention,  vested  wholly  in  the 
States,  and  when  the  States  parted  with  them  to  an 
Executive  elected  by  the  people  at  large,  they  reserved 
to  themselves  an  equal  share  and  an  absolute  veto  in 
the  performance  of  both  these  great  and  vital  func 
tions  of  government. 

In  their  legislative  capacity  the  Senate  was  given 
all  the  powers  conferred  upon  the  House,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  States  retained  for  their  branch  of  the 
national  legislature  all  the  powers  allotted  to  the 
branch  elected  on  the  basis  of  population,  with  a 
single  exception.  That  exception  was  the  reservation 
to  the  House  of  the  sole  right  to  originate  all  meas 
ures  to  raise  revenue,  —  a  power  of  the  most  funda 
mental  kind,  —  but  as  the  convention  took  pains  to 
provide  that  the  Senate  should  have  an  unlimited 
right  to  amend  such  bills  the  reservation  in  favor  of 
the  House  is  so  curtailed  that  their  only  real  privi 
lege  is  the  monopoly  of  merely  initiating  revenue 
bills,  which  does  not  seriously  affect  the  legislative 
equality  of  the  two  Houses  even  on  this  point.  The 
Senate,  also,  was  made  the  high  court  to  try  all  im- 


THE   SENATE    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES         61 

peachments  of  officers  of  the  United  States,  and  this 
great  function  has  been  performed  by  the  Senators  in 
the  cases  of  certain  judges,  and  in  1867  in  the  trial 
of  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United  States. 
The  upper  House  of  Congress  was  the  natural  and 
obvious  body  to  act  as  a  court  in  impeachment  cases, 
but  the  fact  is  of  interest  here  because  it  shows  that 
the  Senate  was  given  judicial  as  well  as  executive  and 
legislative  power,  and  was  made  in  this  way  to  share 
in  the  duties  of  both  the  co-ordinate  branches  of  the 
government,  this  participation  being  emphasized  by 
the  fact  that  when  the  Senate  sits  as  a  court  for  the 
trial  of  the  President  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States  presides  over  its  deliberations. 

The  States  in  convention,  having  thus  created  an 
upper  House  to  represent  them  and  continue  their 
authority  in  the  general  government,  and  having 
endowed  their  creation  with  an  unprecedented  com 
bination  of  legislative  and  executive  powers,  then 
further  provided  that  the  Senators  should  be  elected 
for  a  term  of  six  years,  and  that  only  one-third  of  the 
Senate  should  be  changed  every  two  years  at  the 
biennial  national  elections.  These  are  very  familiar 
facts,  and  it  is  obvious  enough  that  the  long  term 
gives  greater  stability  and  a  larger  freedom  of  action 
to  the  body  which  enjoys  it  than  would  be  possible 
with  a  short  term.  But  only  a  somewhat  careful 
consideration  will  disclose  the  ingenuity  with  which 


62         THE   SENATE    OF   THE    UNITED   STATES 

the  Convention,  representing  as  it  did  the  separate 
States,  sought  to  enhance  the  authority  of  the  Senate 
by  these  apparently  formal  arrangements  for  terms 
and  times  of  election.  The  term  of  six  years  is  three 
times  as  long  as  that  of  members  of  the  House,  and 
half  as  long  again  as  that  of  the  President.  There 
are  always,  therefore,  two-thirds  of  the  Senators 
whose  terms  extend  either  two  or  four  years  beyond 
the  life  of  the  existing  House.  When  a  President 
comes  into  office,  he  meets  a  Senate  two-thirds  of 
whose  membership  have  terms  coequal  with  or  two 
years  longer  than  his  own  period  of  service,  and  in 
the  middle  of  his  term  he  has  a  Senate  two-thirds  of 
whose  members  have  terms  of  service  either  two  or 
four  years  longer  than  his  own.  Stated  in  this  way  it 
becomes  at  once  apparent  that  the  Convention  sought 
by  the  six-year  term  not  merely  to  add  to  the  stabil 
ity  and  dignity  of  the  Senate,  but  to  make  it,  so  far 
as  possible,  independent  at  all  times,  through  the  su 
perior  length  of  terms  possessed  by  a  majority  of  the 
Senators,  as  against  the  House  on  the  one  side  and 
the  President  on  the  other,  who  were  chosen  alike  by 
all  the  people  of  the  Union  on  the  basis  of  population. 
This  painstaking  arrangement  as  to  the  length  of  the 
term  is  supplemented  and  made  most  effective  by  the 
provision  that  only  one-third  of  the  Senate  should  be 
elected  every  two  years.  Joined  with  the  six-year 
term,  as  has  just  been  shown,  the  division  of  the 


THE   SENATE    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES         63 

Senate  into  three  classes,  elected  respectively  at  in 
tervals  of  two  years,  gives  it  always  a  majority  of 
longer  life  than  the  President  or  the  House,  but  it 
also  gives  the  Senate  a  quality  of  permanency  not 
possessed  by  the  lower  branch,  or  even  by  the  execu 
tive  power.  A  House  passes  out  of  existence  on 
March  4  in  alternate  years,  and  then  ensues  a  period 
when  there  is  no  House,  and  can  be  none,  until  the 
members-elect  are  brought  together  by  the  summons 
of  the  President,  or  by  the  operation  of  law,  to  meet 
in  Washington  and  organize  one.  The  Senate,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  always  organized,  always  in  exist 
ence.  It  was  organized  in  April,  1789,  and  has  re 
mained  so  ever  since,  for  there  never  has  been  a 
moment  since  that  time  when  there  were  not  two- 
thirds  of  the  Senators  in  office,  able  to  meet  at  any 
instant  and  transact  business  without  further  formal 
ity  than  calling  the  roll  in  order  to  show  the  presence 
of  a  quorum,  or,  under  certain  contingencies,  choosing 
a  president  pro  tempore. 

In  this  connection  it  is  not  without  interest  to  con 
trast  the  minute  care  of  the  Constitution-makers  in 
regard  to  the  perpetual  existence  of  the  Senate  with 
the  dangerous  oversight  of  which  they  were  guilty  in 
making  similar  provision  for  the  Executive.  A  Vice- 
President  was  created  to  take  the  place  of  the  Presi 
dent  in  case  of  the  latter' s  death,  resignation,  or 
disability,  and  in  the  event  of  the  death  or  disability 


64        THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 

of  both  the  President  and  Vice-President,  Congress 
was  empowered  to  settle  the  succession  by  law.  But 
in  the  case,  by  no  means  an  impossible  one,  of  the 
death  or  disability  of  the  President-elect,  or  of  both 
the  President  and  Vice- President  elect,  after  the  ad 
journment  of  the  electoral  colleges  and  before  March 
4,  no  provision  whatever  was  made  for  the  succes 
sion,  or  for  the  continuance  of  the  Executive  subse 
quent  to  March  4.  This  was  the  way  the  matter 
was  left  by  the  framers  in  the  original  Constitution. 
In  the  Twelfth  Amendment,  adopted  in  1804,  which 
regulated  the  manner  of  choosing  a  President  by 
the  House  in  the  case  of  a  failure  to  elect  by  the 
people,  it  is  said  that  if  the  House  does  not  elect 
before  March  4  the  Vice-President  "  shall  act  as 
President,  as  in  the  case  of  the  death  or  other  con 
stitutional  disability  of  the  President."  Thus  this 
amendment,  by  implication,  provides  for  the  possi 
bility  of  the  death  of  the  President  elect,  but  the 
case  of  the  death  of  both  the  President  and  Vice- 
President  elect  remains  as  the  Constitution  itself 
originally  left  it,  wholly  uncovered.  Should  this 
contingency  just  mentioned  ever  occur,  as  it  well 
might,  some  way  out  of  the  grave  situation  thus 
created  would  no  doubt  be  found,  but  it  would  have 
to  be  extra-constitutional  and  through  an  assumption 
of  power  by  Congress.  In  the  essential  duty  of  main 
taining  the  existence  of  the  government  without  lapse 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES         65 

or  break  this  is  a  serious,  if  not  perilous,  omission. 
There  is  no  such  oversight,  no  such  instance  of  neg 
lect  to  be  found  in  the  constitutional  arrangements 
guaranteeing  the  perpetuity  and  unchanging  charac 
ter  of  the  Senate. 

Having  now  shown  the  origin  of  the  Senate,  the 
manner  in  which  it  was  formed,  the  great  powers 
conferred  upon  it,  and  the  care  taken  for  its  contin 
ued  and  unbroken  existence,  the  next  step,  in  order 
to  understand  the  Senate  as  it  is  to-day,  is  to  learn 
the  conception  entertained  in  regard  to  it  by  the  men 
contemporary  with  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution 
who  first  organized  the  upper  chamber  of  the  new 
Congress  and  set  it  in  motion. 

Early  in  the  first  session  the  Senate  adopted  the 
following  set  of  brief  and  simple  rules : 


IST. 

The  President  having  taken  the  Chair  and  a  quorum 
being  present  the  Journal  of  the  preceding  day  shall  be 
read,  to  the  end  that  any  mistake  may  be  corrected  that 
shall  have  been  made  in  the  entries. 


IlD. 

No  member  shall  speak  to  another,  or  otherwise  interrupt 
the  business  of  the  Senate,  or  read  any  printed  paper  while 
the  Journals  or  public  papers  are  reading,  or  when  any 
member  is  speaking  in  any  debate. 


66        THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES 

HID. 

Every  member  when  he  speaks  shall  address  the  Chair 
standing  in  his  place,  and  when  he  has  finished  shall  sit 
down. 

IVTH 

No  member  shall  speak  more  than  twice  in  any  one  de 
bate  on  the  same  day,  without  leave  of  the  Senate. 

VTH. 

When  two  members  rise  at  the  same  time,  the  President 
shall  name  the  person  to  speak ;  but  in  all  cases  the  mem 
ber  first  rising  shall  speak  first. 

VlTH. 

No  motion  shall  be  debated  until  the  same  shall  be 
seconded. 

VIlTH. 

When  a  motion  shall  be  made  and  seconded,  it  shall  be 
reduced  to  writing,  if  desired  by  the  President,  or  any 
member,  delivered  in  at  the  table,  and  read  by  the  Presi 
dent  before  the  same  shall  be  debated. 

VIIlTH. 

While  a  question  is  before  the  Senate,  no  motion  shall  be 
received  unless  for  an  amendment,  for  the  previous  ques 
tion,  or  for  postponing  the  main  question,  or  to  commit  it, 
or  to  adjourn. 

IXTH. 

The  previous  question  being  moved  and  seconded,  the 
question  from  the  Chair  shall  be  —  "  Shall  the  main  ques 
tion  be  now  put?"  —And  if  the  nays  prevail,  the  main 
question  shall  not  then  be  put. 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES         67 

XTH. 

If  a  question  in  debate  contain  several  points,  any  mem 
ber  may  have  the  same  divided. 

XlTH. 

When  the  yeas  and  nays  shall  be  called  for  by  one-fifth 
of  the  members  present,  each  member  called  upon  shall, 
unless  for  special  reason  he  be  excused  by  the  Senate, 
declare  openly  and  without  debate  his  assent  or  dissent 
to  the  question.  In  taking  the  yeas  and  nays,  and  upon 
the  call  of  the  House,  the  names  of  the  members  shall  be 
taken  alphabetically. 

XIlTH. 

One  day's  notice  at  least  shall  be  given  of  an  intended 
motion  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill. 

XIIlTH. 

Every  bill  shall  receive  three  readings  previous  to  its 
being  passed :  and  the  President  shall  give  notice  at  each, 
whether  it  be  the  first,  second,  or  third ;  which  readings 
shall  be  on  three  different  days,  unless  the  Senate  unani 
mously  direct  otherwise. 

XIVTH. 

No  bill  shall  be  committed  or  amended  until  it  shall  have 
been  twice  read,  after  which  it  may  be  referred  to  a 
Committee. 

XVTH. 

All  Committees  shall  be  appointed  by  BALLOT  and  a  plu 
rality  of  votes  shall  make  a  choice. 


68        THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 

XVlTH. 

When  a  member  shall  be  called  to  order,  he  shall  sit 
down  until  the  President  shall  have  determined  whether  he 
is  in  order  or  not ;  and  every  question  of  order  shall  be  de 
cided  by  the  President  without  debate :  but  if  there  be  a 
doubt  in  his  mind  he  may  call  for  the  sense  of  the  Senate. 

XVIlTH. 

If  a  member  be  called  to  order  for  words  spoken,  the  ex 
ceptionable  words  shall  be  immediately  taken  down  in 
writing,  that  the  President  may  be  better  enabled  to  judge 
of  the  matter. 

XVIIlTH. 

When  a  blank  is  be  filled,  and  different  sums  shall  be 
proposed,  the  question  shall  be  taken  on  the  highest  sum 
first. 

XIXTH. 

No  member  shall  absent  himself  from  the  service  of  the 
Senate  without  leave  of  the  Senate  first  obtained.1 

For  a  legislative  body  charged  with  executive  func 
tions  these  rules  seem  rudimentary  to  the  last  degree. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  first  Senate 
which  assembled  in  the  Federal  Hall  of  New  York  in 
April,  1789,  consisted  of  only  twenty-two  members, 
as  North  Carolina  did  not  accede  to  the  Constitution 
until  November  of  the  same  year,  while  Rhode  Island 
held  off  until  June,  1790.  These  twenty-two  gentle- 

1  From  the  "  Journal  of  the  First  Session  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  March  4th,  1789.  New  York,  1789."  Pages  14-15. 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES         69 

men,  therefore,  sat  together  in  one  not  very  large 
room,  and  talked  matters  over  with  an  informality 
and  a  familiarity  which  have  never  entirely  departed 
from  the  Senate  debates,  and  which  still  reign  in  ex 
ecutive  sessions.  All  their  sessions  at  the  outset  were 
entirely  private,  there  was  no  record  of  the  debates, 
and  the  deliberations  in  legislative  session  were  not 
opened  to  the  public  until  1793,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  contest  over  the  right  of  Albert  Gallatin  to  a  seat. 
This  small  body  of  men  sitting  in  this  way  in  private, 
with  comparatively  little  to  do,  and  with  no  record  of 
the  proceedings  but  the  journal,  did  not  require  any 
thing  very  elaborate  in  the  way  of  rules.  Business 
was  largely  transacted  by  general  assent,  and  with 
much  regard  for  the  convenience  of  each  Senator,  — 
habits  which  have  survived  unchanged  to  the  present 
time,  and  which,  although  often  jeered  at  by  persons 
outside  the  Senate,  are  of  much  value  and  comfort  to 
those  within.  There  is,  however,  one  rale  in  this 
primitive  code  which  seems  almost  needless  for  so 
small  a  body  and  which  is  at  direct  variance  with 
what  is  to-day  one  of  the  most  cherished  traditions 
and  most  characteristic  features  of  the  Senate.  This 
rule  is  numbered  nine,  and  provides  for  the  previous 
question  to  close  debate  in  the  simplest  and  most 
drastic  manner.  The  previous  question  in  the  first 
Senate  was  a  privileged  motion,  as  appears  by  rule 
eight.  It  could  be  moved  and  seconded  at  any  time, 


70        THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES 

passed  by  a  majority  vote,  and  if  agreed  to  it  cut  off 
all  debate  then  and  there.  When  the  rules  were  re 
vised,  in  1806,  this  provision  for  closing  debate  was 
dropped,  and  unlimited  debate  has  been  the  un 
changing  rule  of  the  Senate  ever  since.  In  fact, 
the  rules  of  1806,  despite  numerous  revisions,  which 
made  no  very  vital  changes,  and  a  few  amendments 
have  remained  substantially  the  rules  of  the  Senate 
down  to  the  present  time.  Under  these  century-old 
rules,  for  which  there  is  often  a  fine  disregard  in  prac 
tice,  the  Senate  still  transacts  its  business  largely  by 
unanimous  consent  and  with  a  consideration  for  the 
wishes  and  convenience  of  each  Senator  very  agree 
able  to  them,  although  not  a  little  laughed  at  by  an 
irreverent  public.  These  rules,  which  have  endured 
so  long,  are  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  conserva 
tism  of  the  Senate  and  of  the  unbroken  continuity  of 
its  existence  as  an  organized  body  since  the  foundation 
of  the  government.  They  also  show  how  closely  the 
Senate  has  adhered  to  the  conception  of  its  duties  and 
functions  entertained  by  the  framers  of  the  Constitu 
tion  and  the  organizers  of  the  government. 

Beyond  this  the  Senate  rules  do  not  require  any 
detailed  examination.  There  is,  indeed,  only  one 
which  first  appears  in  the  revision  of  1806  which 
needs  to  be  mentioned  on  account  of  the  light  which 
it  throws  on  the  relation  of  the  Senate  to  the  purely 
executive  branch  of  the  government,  and  it  is  only  by 


THE  SENATE   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES         71 

a  just  comprehension  of  the  relations  of  the  Senate  to 
the  President  and  to  the  House  that  a  proper  under 
standing  of  what  the  Senate  has  come  to  be  and 
what  part  it  plays  in  our  political  system  can  be 
obtained. 

The  first  code  of  rules,  adopted  in  1789,  makes,  as 
will  have  been  seen,  no  provision  for  the  President's 
meeting  with  the  Senate  in  executive  session.  That 
he  should  do  so  was  taken  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
was  in  conformity  with  the  ideas  of  the  framers  of 
the  instrument.  In  accordance  with  this  view  Wash 
ington,  in  August,  1789,  met  with  the  Senate  twice 
to  formulate  the  provisions  of  a  treaty  to  be  made 
with  the  Choctaw  Indians.  The  scheme  did  not 
work  well.  The  President  did  not  enjoy  sitting  by 
and  hearing  the  terms  of  his  treaty  discussed,  and 
Senators  were  embarrassed  by  being  compelled  to  de 
bate  and  vote  upon  the  President's  proposals  in  his 
presence.  The  plan  of  personal  meeting  with  the 
Senate  was,  therefore,  given  up  by  Washington,  and 
has  never  been  resumed.  But  the  right  of  the  Presi 
dent  to  come  to  the  Senate  for  personal  consultation, 
and  the  original  constitutional  theory  in  this  respect, 
have  never  been  abandoned,  as  will  appear  if  we 
examine  the  later  rules. 

In  the  revision  of  the  rules  adopted  March  26, 
1806,  rule  thirty-four  provides,  under  the  head  of 
nominations,  that : 


72        THE   SENATE   OF  THE   UNITED   STATES 

"  When  the  President  of  the  United  States  shall  meet 
the  Senate  in  the  Senate  Chamber  the  President  of  the 
Senate  shall  have  a  chair  on  the  floor,  be  considered  as 
the  head  of  the  Senate,  and  his  chair  shall  be  assigned 
to  the  President  of  the  United  States." 

Rule  thirty-five  provides  that : 

"  All  questions  shall  be  put  by  the  President  of  the 
Senate  either  in  the  presence  or  absence  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States." 

In  the  revision  of  1820  the  provision  of  rule  thirty- 
five  of  1806  was  dropped,  but  that  of  rule  thirty-four 
was  retained  and  continued  as  a  rule  of  the  Senate 
until  1877,  when  the  following  rule  (sixty-five), 
differing  only  in  phraseology,  was  substituted  for  it : 

"  When  the  President  of  the  United  States  shall  meet 
the  Senate  in  the  Senate  Chamber  for  the  consideration 
of  executive  business,  he  shall  have  a  seat  on  the  right 
of  the  chair/' 

This  is  the  rule  at  the  present  time,  and  although 
it  is  never  put  into  practical  operation,  it  has  impor 
tance  not  merely  as  embodying  an  unbroken  tradition, 
but  as  a  formal  recognition  of  certain  constitutional 
principles  of  very  great  moment.  By  this  rule  are 
recognized  the  right  of  the  President  to  consult  per 
sonally  with  the  Senate,  the  position  of  the  Senators 
as  the  President's  only  constitutional  advisers,  and 
the  equality  of  the  Senate  in  the  conduct  of  all 
executive  business  in  which,  under  the  Constitu- 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES         73 

tion,  they  are  entitled  to  share.  The  right  of  the 
President  personally  to  consult  the  Senate  as  a  body 
involves  also  the  correlative  right  of  the  Senate,  in 
the  language  of  the  Constitution,  to  advise  the  Presi 
dent.  To  the  Senate  alone  is  given  this  right  to  ad 
vise  the  Executive.  The  members  of  the  Cabinet 
are  often  loosely  spoken  of  as  the  constitutional  ad 
visers  of  the  President.  They  are,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  nothing  of  the  sort.  They  are  not  created 
by  the  Constitution,  but  by  the  laws  which  the 
Constitution  authorizes  Congress  to  pass  in  order 
to  carry  out  its  provisions.  The  Constitution  con 
templates  the  establishment  of  executive  depart 
ments,  and  says  that  the  President  may  require 
the  opinion  in  writing  of  the  heads  of  such  depart 
ments,  but  these  departments  can  exist  only  by 
the  pleasure  of  Congress,  and  the  President  is  not 
bound  to  consult  their  chiefs.  A  story  is  told  of 
Lincoln's  submitting  a  proposition  which  he  fav 
ored  to  his  Cabinet.  All  were  against  it.  "  Seven 
nays ;  one  yea,"  said  the  President ;  "  the  ayes  have 
it,  and  it  is  so  ordered."  Whether  apocryphal  or 
not  the  anecdote  illustrates  the  distinction  between 
the  constitutional  Senate  and  the  statutory  Cabinet. 
An  adverse  majority  in  the  Senate  cannot  be  over 
come  in  that  way,  for  the  Constitution  gives  the 
Senate  power,  while  the  law  alone  creates  the  Cab 
inet,  whose  members  represent  in  the  last  analysis 


74        THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 

simply  the  policy  and  will  of  the  Executive.  The 
equality  of  the  Senate  in  executive  business  —  the 
last  point  recognized  by  the  rule  —  is  shown  by 
the  care  taken  from  the  beginning  to  make  it  per 
fectly  clear  that  the  President  is  neither  to  preside 
over  nor  to  share  in  the  discussions  of  the  Senate, 
but  is  to  deal  with  them  as  an  organized  body, 
under  the  guidance  of  their  own  presiding  officer. 

Such  being  the  theory  of  the  Constitution,  never 
abandoned  since  the  beginning,  the  manner  in  which 
it  has  been  worked  out  in  practice  shows  at  once  the 
position  of  the  Senate  to-day.  Since  August,  1789, 
the  President  has  never  consulted  or  sat  with  the 
Senate  in  person  to  consider  executive  business, 
either  in  relation  to  nominations  or  to  treaties.  But 
while  the  inconvenience  of  personal  consultation 
was  thus  early  made  apparent,  it  became  at  once 
equally  obvious  that  to  hold  no  consultation  with 
a  body  of  constitutional  advisers  about  nominations 
and  treaties  upon  which  they  had  the  power  to  put 
an  absolute  veto,  would  be  at  once  dangerous  and 
absurd. 

In  1789  Washington  sent  in  the  nomination  of 
Benjamin  Fishburn  for  the  place  of  Naval  Officer 
at  the  port  of  Savannah.  He  was  rejected  by  the 
Senate.  Fishburn  had  been  an  old  soldier,  and 
was  well  known  to  Washington,  who  was  very 
much  annoyed  by  his  rejection.  When  he  sent  in 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES         75 

another   name   for   the   same   place   he  transmitted 
a  message  to  the  Senate  in  which  he  said  : 

"  Whatever  may  have  been  the  reasons  which  induced 
your  dissent,  I  am  persuaded  that  they  were  such  as  you 
deemed  sufficient.  Permit  me  to  submit  to  your  consid 
eration,  whether,  on  occasions  where  the  propriety  of  nomi 
nations  appears  questionable  to  you,  it  would  not  be 
expedient  to  communicate  that  circumstance  to  me,  and 
thereby  avail  yourselves  of  the  information  which  led  me 
to  make  them,  and  which  I  would  with  pleasure  lay  be 
fore  you.  Probably  my  reasons  for  nominating  Mr.  Fish- 
burn  may  tend  to  show  that  such  a  mode  of  proceeding, 
in  such  cases,  might  be  useful.  I  will  therefore  detail 
them." 

He  then  went  on  to  give  an  account  of  Colonel 
Fishburn  and  the  reasons  which  had  led  to  his  nom 
ination.  The  motives  which  influenced  the  Senate 
in  the  rejection  of  Fishburn  do  not  appear,  but  the 
passage  which  has  been  quoted  from  Washington's 
special  message  demonstrates  not  only  his  belief  in 
the  need  of  consultation  with  the  Senate  about 
nominations,  but  the  absolute  necessity  for  it  in 
order  to  prevent  constant  friction  between  the  Senate 
and  the  Executive.  This  case  undoubtedly  led,  there 
fore,  to  the  practice  which  has  been  continued  to  the 
present  time  of  the  President  consulting  with  Sen 
ators  in  regard  to  appointments.  As  the  Senate,  af 
ter  it  has  confirmed  a  nomination,  becomes  equally 
responsible  with  the  President  for  the  appointment, 


76        THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES 

it  is  obvious  that  the  right  of  consultation  under 
the  Constitution,  which  has  already  been  defined, 
must  be  exercised  in  some  way.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  informal  consultations  with  individual 
Senators  took  the  place  of  the  cumbrous  and  in 
convenient  method  of  consulting  the  Senate  as  a 
body,  and  in  this  way  the  intent  of  the  Constitu 
tion  has  been  carried  out.  Nothing,  therefore,  is 
more  inept  than  to  criticise  a  President  because 
he  consults  the  Senators  from  a  State  in  regard 
to  an  appointment  in  or  from  that  State.  The 
Senators  are  his  constitutional  advisers.  In  some 
way  he  must  consult  them,  and  it  is  impossible 
that  any  President  should  be  able  to  know  enough 
about  the  men  in  forty-five  States  to  enable  him 
to  appoint  intelligently  unless  he  could  avail  him 
self  of  the  knowledge  of  those  who  represent  the 
several  States.  The  consultation  of  Senators  by 
the  President,  therefore,  in  regard  to  appointments, 
is  nothing  more  than  carrying  out  the  intent  of 
the  Constitution  in  the  manner  which  practice  has 
shown  to  be  the  only  convenient  one.  The  influence 
of  the  Senate  in  making  appointments  is  not  in 
creased  thereby,  except  so  far  as  the  multiplication 
of  officers  has  made  it  more  necessary  for  the  Pres 
ident  to  receive  local  information  and  depend  for 
it  upon  the  Senators  more  than  was  essential  in 
the  early  days.  All  that  has  been  done  constitu- 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES         77 

tionally  is  to  substitute  an  informal  consultation 
with  individual  Senators  for  the  consultation  of  the 
Senate  as  a  body,  which  has  been  always  recog 
nized  as  a  constitutional  right  in  the  simple  rule 
already  quoted. 

The  question  of  appointments  to  office  was  closely 
allied  to  that  of  removals,  and  while  the  right  of  the 
Senate  to  confirm  or  reject  all  nominations  was  plain 
and  undoubted,  the  question  of  the  right  of  the  Presi 
dent  to  remove  gave  rise  from  the  beginning  to  a 
great  deal  of  discussion.  There  was  a  protracted 
debate  upon  this  point  in  regard  to  the  act  estab 
lishing  the  Treasury  Department,  passed  in  1789, 
the  question  being  whether  the  President  had  the 
right  to  remove  absolutely  under  the  Constitution, 
either  with  or  without  any  reference  to  it  in  the 
law,  or  whether  the  Congress  could  confer  upon 
the  President  or  withhold  from  him  the  right  to 
remove  from  an  office  which  Congress  had  estab 
lished.  The  act  of  1789  finally  provided,  in  sec 
tion  7,  "that  whenever  the  Secretary  should  be 
removed  from  office  by  the  President  of  the  Uni 
ted  States  or  in  any  other  case  of  vacancy/'  etc. 
This  recognized  the  right  of  the  President  to  re 
move,  but  the  fact  of  the  recognition  in  the  law 
conveyed  the  implication  that  it  was  not  a  purely 
constitutional  right  of  the  Executive  for  which  no 
legislation  was  necessary.  The  question  remained 


78        THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 

an  open  one  and  was  discussed  at  intervals  for 
some  years,  the  Senate  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
especially  under-  Andrew  Jackson,  making  efforts 
to  establish  some  control  over  removals  from  office. 
Finally,  in  the  bitter  controversy  with  Andrew 
Johnson,  the  well  known  Tenure  of  Office  Act  was 
passed.  It  was  so  obviously  objectionable  that  Gen 
eral  Grant  sent  in  a  message  to  his  first  Congress 
urging  its  repeal,  but  the  Senate,  fresh  from  the 
struggle  with  Johnson,  refused  to  do  more  than 
modify  it.  During  Mr.  Cleveland's  first  term  the 
Senate,  led  by  Senator  Edmunds,  of  Vermont,  had 
a  controversy  with  the  President  as  to  its  right 
to  require  him  to  give  reasons  for  his  removals, 
and  thereby  some  of  the  nominations  were  hung 
up  for  a  good  many  months.  The  sympathy  of 
the  country  was  with  the  President,  and  the  con 
test  seemed  to  be  doing  a  great  deal  of  harm.  In 
the  session  of  1886-87,  Senator  Hoar  introduced 
a  bill,  which  became  law  on  March  3,  1887,  by 
which  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  was  repealed.  This 
ended  the  controversy,  and  it  may  now  be  taken  as 
settled  that  the  absolute  right  of  the  President  to 
remove,  under  the  Constitution,  is  recognized,  and 
that  the  right  of  the  Senate  to  ask  for  the  reasons 
for  removals,  which  they  clearly  had  under  the 
Tenure  of  Office  Act,  has  also  been  abandoned. 
That  the  present  position  is  sound  constitutionally 


THE   SENATE  OF   THE   UNITED   STATES         79 

is,  I  think,  clear,  but  the  course  of  events  shows 
that  in  this  important  direction  the  Senate  has 
given  up  a  power  which  at  one  time  it  asserted 
not  only  in  debate  but  by  a  law. 

In  regard  to  the  other  branch  of  the  Senate's 
executive  functions,  the  treaty-making  power,  the 
course  of  development  has  been  much  the  same, — 
consultation  of  individual  Senators,  either  directly 
by  the  President  or  through  the  Secretary  of  State 
by  means  of  communication  with  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations,  having  been  substituted  for  the  old 
plan  of  counselling  beforehand  with  the  Senate  as  a 
body.  The  treaty-making  power  of  the  Senate  is  a 
large  subject,  which  I  have  already  discussed  at  length 
in  an  article  which  appeared  in  a  previous  volume,1 
but  the  results  of  more  than  a  century  of  development 
in  this  direction  may  be  briefly  summed  up. 

The  Senate  has  the  right,  under  the  language  of 
the  Constitution,  to  advise  beforehand  that  the  ne 
gotiation  be  entered  into,  or  the  reverse.  This  right 
has  been  exercised  on  two  or  three  occasions,  but  very 
rarely,  and  has  usually  been  allowed  to  fall  into  abey 
ance,  although  circumstances  may  make  its  use  neces 
sary  and  desirable  at  any  time.2  The  Presidents  have 

1  "  A  Fighting  Frigate  and  other  Essays  and  Addresses"  —  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  1902. 

2  In  the  last  session  of  Congress  (1905-1906)  the  "  Niagara  Bill "  con 
tains  a  section  by  which  Congress  requests  the  President  to  enter  upon 
negotiations  with  Great  Britain  for  the  preservation  of  Niagara  Falls. 


80         THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES 

from  time  to  time  consulted  the  Senate  prior  to  nego 
tiation,  and  this  right,  although  not  often  exercised, 
has  been  made  use  of  at  intervals  down  to  the  present 
day.  The  right  of  the  Senate  to  amend  has  been 
always  freely  used  at  all  periods  of  our  history,  and, 
of  course,  will  continue  to  be  exercised,  because  it  is 
the  only  method  by  which  the  Senate  can  take  part  in 
the  negotiations,  as  the  Constitution  intended  it  to  do. 

This  summary  of  the  history  of  the  treaty-making 
power  as  exercised  by  the  Senate  shows  that  the  Sen 
ate  has  not  only  not  sought  to  extend  its  power  over 
treaties  unduly,  or  in  doubtful  directions,  but  that  it 
has  wisely  allowed  certain  undoubted  privileges  to 
fall  into  abeyance  and  has  contented  itself  with  dis 
cussion  and  amendment  when  a  treaty  came  before  it, 
and  with  the  informal  consultations  which  it  has  been 
the  practice  of  most  Presidents  to  hold  with  members 
of  the  Senate  in  regard  to  our  foreign  relations. 

This  covers  the  relations  of  the  Senate  with  the 
Executive  in  regard  to  its  executive  functions  of 
confirming  nominations  and  of  ratifying  treaties. 
It  only  remains  now  to  consider  the  relations  of 
the  Senate  with  the  House,  and  there  is  only  one 
point  in  the  Constitution  where  the  powers  of  either 
House  are  restrained.  That  is  the  clause  which  gives 
to  the  House  of  Representatives  the  sole  right  to  orig 
inate  bills  to  raise  revenue.  In  all  other  respects  the 
Senate  and  the  House  are  upon  an  absolute  legislative 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE  UNITED   STATES         81 

equality.  This  right  of  the  House  thus  given  in  the 
Constitution  has,  of  course,  never  been  questioned,  nor 
has  the  right  of  the  Senate  to  make  unlimited  amend 
ments  to  bills  to  raise  revenue  ever  been  successfully 
contested,  but  the  practice  has  grown  up  of  allowing 
the  House  to  originate  not  only  bills  to  raise  revenue, 
but  also  the  great  appropriation  bills  which  provide  for 
the  expenditure  of  the  public  money.  The  Senate  has 
an  undoubted  right  to  originate  any  appropriation  bill, 
large  or  small,  and  it  frequently  passes  bills  carrying 
an  appropriation  for  some  single  and  specific  object, 
such  as  the  construction  of  a  light-house  or  of  a  public 
building,  but  at  the  same  time  the  Senate  has,  without 
serious  resistance,  conceded  to  the  House  the  sole  right 
to  originate  the  great  appropriation  bills,  although  its 
own  right  to  originate  such  measures  is  the  same  as  that 
of  the  lower  branch.  That  this  is  a  wise  practice,  I  think 
few  persons  will  doubt,  but  it  certainly  does  not  show 
on  the  part  of  the  Senate  a  desire  to  usurp  authority. 
Thus  it  appears  that  both  in  relation  to  the  Exec 
utive  and  the  House  of  Representatives  the  Senate 
has  not  sought  to  extend  its  constitutional  powers, 
but  has,  on  the  contrary,  refrained  from  the  exer 
cise  of  some  undoubted  rights  and  has  allowed 
others  to  rest  in  abeyance.  Yet  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  is  equally  true  that  the  power  of  the 
Senate  has  grown  enormously  in  the  one  hundred 
years  and  more  of  our  history.  The  influence  of 


82         THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 

the  Senate  in  legislation  and  in  all  departments  of 
government  is  much  greater  than  at  the  beginning, 
and  far  exceeds  that  of  the  House ;  but  this  is  not  due 
to  any  usurpations  on  the  part  of  the  Senate,  as  has 
been  shown  by  the  preceding  review  of  the  history  of 
its  constitutional  functions.  The  increase  in  the  im 
portance,  weight,  and  power  of  the  Senate  is  due  pri 
marily  to  its  inherent  strength,  and  this  strength  rests 
upon  the  manner  in  which  it  was  endowed  by  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution.  With  equal  authority 
in  legislation,  with  executive  functions  which  involve 
all  appointments  to  office  and  all  our  foreign  relations, 
it  was  inevitable  that  as  the  country  and  the  govern 
ment  grew  the  power  of  the  Senate  should  increase 
more  largely  than  that  of  any  other  branch  of  the 
government,  for  the  simple  reason  that  its  original 
opportunity  for  growth  was  greater.  This  increase  of 
power  in  the  Senate  has  undoubtedly  been  stimulated 
by  the  fact  that  the  rigid  rules  necessary  in  the  more 
numerous  branch  of  Congress  has  prevented  the  House 
from  doing  many  important  things  which  the  Sen 
ate,  with  its  easy  methods  of  conducting  business, 
could  readily  take  up.  Many  matters  from  which  the 
House  excluded  itself  by  its  own  rules  were  in  this 
way  thrown  into  the  possession  of  the  Senate,  which 
is  a  sure  method  of  enhancing  legislative  power.  In 
the  same  way,  although  the  support  of  the  entire  Con 
gress  is  necessary  to  a  successful  administration,  no 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES         83 

President  can  get  on  without  the  Senate,  even  if  he 
has  the  House  with  him,  because  it  is  always  within 
the  power  of  the  Senate,  if  it  is  so  disposed,  to  hamper 
the  Executive  without  going  into  open  opposition,  both 
in  administration,  through  the  offices,  and  in  foreign 
relations,  through  its  treaty-making  power.  Very 
naturally,  therefore,  Presidents  are  always  anxious 
to  be  on  the  best  terms  with  the  Senators,  who  are 
their  constitutional  advisers,  and  for  this  reason  as 
Executive  power  has  expanded  with  the  growth  of  the 
the  nation  and  the  extension  of  the  government,  the 
power  of  the  Senate  has  gone  hand  in  hand  with  it. 

The  Senate  is  to-day  the  most  powerful  single 
chamber  in  any  legislative  body  in  the  world,  but 
this  power,  which  is  shown  daily  by  the  wide  at 
tention  to  all  that  is  said  and  done  in  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States,  is  not  the  product  of  selfish 
and  cunning  usurpations  on  the  part  of  an  ambi 
tious  body.  It  is  due  to  the  original  constitution 
of  the  Senate,  to  the  fact  that  the  Senate  repre 
sents  States,  to  the  powers  conferred  upon  it  at 
the  outset  by  the  makers  of  the  Constitution,  to 
its  permanency  of  organization,  and  to  the  combi 
nation  of  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  func 
tions,  which  set  it  apart  from  all  other  legislative 
bodies.  Without  the  assent  of  the  Senate  no  bill 
can  become  law,  no  office  can  be  filled,  no  treaty 
ratified.  The  most  important  bills  are  largely  the 


84         THE   SENATE   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 

work  of  the  Senate,  owing  not  only  to  its  large 
powers,  but  to  its  liberty  of  debate  and  amendment 
possible  in  a  body  of  the  size  of  the  Senate,  and  very 
difficult  in  a  body  as  large  as  the  House.  In  the  Sen 
ate,  to  take  very  recent  instances,  the  bill  for  the  Isth 
mian  canal  was  finally  made  and  the  Railroad  Rate 
bill  vitally  changed  and  improved  after  a  very  able 
and  elaborate  discussion  extending  over  many  weeks. 
In  the  Senate  the  long  debate  upon  the  Philippine 
government  bill  disposed  of  the  question  so  entirely 
that  it  was  not  heard  of  in  the  ensuing  campaign. 
The  House,  in  1894,  initiated,  made,  and  passed  the 
Wilson  tariff  bill.  But  the  Senate  re-made  the  bill 
and  it  was  the  Senate  bill  which  without  the  altera 
tion  of  a  single  line  became  law  against  the  bitter 
opposition  of  both  the  House  and  the  Executive. 

Contests  over  nominations  are  rare  and  rejections 
of  Executive  nominations  still  rarer  because  Presidents, 
following  the  theory  of  the  Constitution,  almost  always 
consult  Senators  about  them  beforehand.  But  the 
power  of  the  Senate  to  take  part  through  amend 
ment  in  making  treaties  is  freely  and  largely  ex 
ercised.  The  amendments  of  the  Senate  to  the 
first  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  relating  to  the  Isth 
mian  canal  were  rejected  by  England,  but  the 
second  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  embodied  everything 
sought  by  the  Senate  in  its  amendments  to  the 
first,  and  was  therefore  ratified  by  an  overwhelm- 


THE   SENATE   OF   THE    UNITED   STATES         85 

ing  majority.  Without  the  assent  of  the  Senate 
Congress  cannot  declare  war  and  the  President 
cannot  make  peace.  The  United  States  went  into 
the  Spanish  war  upon  the  Senate  resolutions,  and 
the  fate  of  the  treaty  of  peace  negotiated  by  the 
President  depended  upon  the  ratification  of  the  Sen 
ate.  The  Senate  is  the  tribunal  before  which  every 
officer  of  the  United  States  impeached  for  high  crimes 
and  misdemeanors  must  come  for  trial. 

Administrations  come  and  go,  Houses  assemble  and 
disperse,  Senators  change,  but  the  Senate  is  always 
there  in  the  Capitol,  and  always  organized,  with  an 
existence  unbroken  since  1789.  As  the  government 
of  three  millions  of  people  gathered  upon  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  has  expanded  into  the  government  of  eighty 
millions,  masters  of  a  continent  and  stretching  forth 
to  distant  islands,  the  power  of  that  branch  of  the 
government  which  was  most  highly  endowed  by  the 
makers  of  the  Constitution  has  grown  proportionately. 
How  vast  the  national  growth  has  been,  the  world 
knows,  and  the  growth  of  the  United  States  Senate  in 
power,  authority,  and  influence  has  gone  with  it  step 
by  step  and  hand  in  hand.  All  this  influence  and 
authority  in  the  Senate  are  due  to  the  powers  con 
ferred  upon  it  by  its  creators,  by  that  remarkable 
body  of  men  who,  in  the  summer  of  1787,  framed  at 
Philadelphia  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 


HISTORY1 

IT  has  been  wisely  and  wittily  said  that  "  one  fact 
is  gossip  and  two  related  facts  are  history,"  an  aph 
orism  very  characteristic  of  the  scientific  age  in  which 
it  was  uttered.  But  the  saying,  with  all  its  truth, 
like  many  other  brilliant  generalizations,  may  easily 
be  pressed  too  far,  and  contains  an  implication  which 
is  anything  but  sound.  It  may  be  quite  true  that 
collections  of  unrelated  facts,  whether  trivial  or  im 
portant,  or  of  facts  presented  without  any  philosophi 
cal  sense  or  any  "  look  before  or  after,"  merit  their 
definition  as  "  gossip  "  ;  yet  we  should  do  very  wrong 
to  underestimate  this  same  "  gossip,"  upon  which,  in 
common  parlance,  the  name  history  is  so  often  be 
stowed.  History  of  the  "  gossip  "  variety  is,  to  begin 
with,  the  foundation  of  all  other  history,  upon  which 
it  will  be  necessary  to  say  something  more  later. 
"Gossip,"  moreover,  whether  light  or  serious,  is  in 
its  best  forms,  especially  in  the  guise  of  memoirs, 
biographies,  and  personal  anecdotes,  extremely  enter- 

1  This  essay  was  written  as  an  introduction  to  the  series  entitled  "  The 
History  of  the  Nations  "  published  by  John  D.  Morris  &  Co.,  of  Philadel 
phia,  to  whose  kindness  I  am  indebted  for  permission  to  reprint  it  here. 
Copyright  1904,  Henry  Cabot  Lodge.  Copyright  1905,  John  D. 
Morris  &  Co. 


HISTORY  87 

taming.  While  it  is  read,  perhaps,  only  for  the  sake 
of  reading,  it  helps  us  to  enjoy  life  and  may  also 
teach  us  to  endure  it.  It  has,  too,  a  real  value  in  an 
instructive  way,  although  how  great  that  value  shall 
be  depends  upon  him  who  receives  the  information 
rather  than  upon  the  writer  thereof.  Even  if  one 
gathers  from  "  gossip  "  nothing  but  an  unphilosophi- 
cal,  unscientific  knowledge  of  people  and  events,  much 
is  gained ;  for  the  man  who  knows  something  of  the 
history  of  the  race  and  of  those  who  have  played  a 
part  in  the  past  not  only  has  widened  his  own  interest 
in  the  world  about  him,  but,  other  things  being  equal, 
is  a  proportionately  more  agreeable  companion  to 
those  whom  he  encounters  in  the  journey  of  life. 
Dr.  Johnson  on  more  than  one  occasion  defended 
desultory  reading,  to  which  he  himself  was  very 
prone,  and  a  wiser  man  than  he  laid  it  down  as  a 
maxim  many  years  before  that  "  reading  maketh  a 
full  man."  Therefore,  let  us  not  give  way  too  much 
to  the  nineteenth-century  contention  about  scientific 
history,  with  its  array  of  causes  and  deductions, 
theories  and  results,  or  to  that  other  dogma  of  the 
same  period,  much  in  favor  with  writers  who  lack 
the  historic  imagination,  that  "  picturesque  "  history 
is  a  poor  and  trivial  thing,  and  that,  above  all,  history 
must  be  "  judicial  "  —  a  bit  of  cant  quite  as  objec 
tionable  as  that  concerning  the  "  dignity  of  history  " 
which  imposed  upon  our  ancestors  and  which  we  have 


88  HISTORY 

laughed  out  of  court.  There  was  a  good  deal  of 
sound  truth  in  Byron's  remark  about  Mitford : 
"  Having  named  his  sins,  it  is  but  fair  to  state  his 
virtues  —  learning,  research,  wrath,  and  partiality.  I 
call  the  latter  virtues  in  a  writer  because  they  make 
him  write  in  earnest."  The  history,  indeed,  to  be 
denned  as  "gossip,"  or  which  remains  or  becomes 
"  gossip  "  in  the  mind  of  him  who  reads,  has  also  its 
very  real  merits  of  entertainment  and  of  instruction 
as  well  as  of  imparting  a  knowledge  which,  however 
desultory  and  disconnected,  is  a  good  thing  for  him 
who  has  it  and  makes  the  possessor  thereof  more  de 
sirable  to  his  fellows.  The  "  Memoirs  of  St.  Simon  " 
may  be  in  themselves  the  merest  gossip  that  was  ever 
set  down,  as  they  are  certainly  the  most  copious ;  but 
he  who  has  looked  upon  these  vivid  pictures  of  a 
vanished  society,  whether  he  is  imaginative  enough 
to  see  shining  upon  them  the  red  light  of  after  years 
or  not,  has  enlarged  his  own  mind,  widened  his  own 
interests,  quickened  his  own  intelligence,  and  made 
himself  more  attractive  to  others  by  following  across 
these  many  pages  the  pageant  of  the  great  Louis  and 
his  court. 

We  may,  indeed,  go  much  further,  if  we  would  do 
full  justice  to  "gossip,"  by  remembering  what  has 
already  been  suggested,  that  the  worth  of  any  record 
of  the  past,  no  matter  how  trivial  or  fond,  depends 
not  merely  upon  the  mind  of  the  writer,  but  upon 


HISTORY  89 

that  of  the  reader  as  well.  According  to  the  canons 
of  those  modern  extremists  who  would  make  history 
as  destitute  of  literary  quality  as  a  museum  of  com 
parative  anatomy,  Herodotus  and  Suetonius,  Joinville 
and  Froissart,  Pepys  and  Walpole  and  Franklin  would 
be  rejected  with  contempt  as  historians  and  set  down 
as  mere  retailers  of  idle  "  gossip  "  or,  at  best,  rather 
untrustworthy  "  original  sources."  It  may  be  readily 
admitted  that  not  one  of  them  ever  attempted  to  trace 
properly  the  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  or  to  draw 
a  truly  scientific  deduction.  They  were  all  probably 
quite  innocent  of  any  knowledge  of  their  duties  in 
that  respect;  yet  not  only  the  world  but  history  in 
the  truest  sense  would  be  much  poorer  and  certainly 
much  duller  without  them.  The  infinite  charm  which 
they  all  possess  —  from  the  ancient  Greek,  wandering 
about  his  little  world,  tablets  in  hand  and  ears  open 
to  the  tales  of  the  temple,  the  court,  or  the  market 
place,  down  to  the  American  boy  seeking  employment 
as  a  printer  in  London,  where  he  was  one  day  to 
determine  the  fate  of  empires  —  attracts  and  will 
always  attract  every  one  who  cares  for  literature  and 
to  whom  humanity  and  humor  and  the  life  of  a  dead 
past  appeal.  To  those  who  look  with  considerate 
eyes  into  these  old  writers  of  tales,  these  purvey 
ors  of  "  gossip,"  these  simple  chroniclers  and  de 
lightfully  egotistic  diarists,  there  rise  up  pictures  of 
times  long  past,  of  social  conditions  and  modes  of 


90  HISTORY 

thought  long  dead,  as  well  as  revelations  of  human 
character  and  motives,  rich  in  suggestions  of  historic 
cause  and  effect  and  more  fertile  in  explanation  of 
the  fate  and  meaning  of  man  upon  earth  than  acres 
of  catalogued  facts  scientifically  classified,  or  reams 
of  calendared  state  papers  arranged  with  antiquarian 
skill.  The  catalogues  and  calendars  are  work  of 
solid  value,  yet  they  have  no  importance  until  the 
seeing  eye  of  the  real  historian  has  torn  out  the  heart 
of  their  mystery.  The  gossip  of  the  Greek  and  the 
Roman,  of  the  medieval  chroniclers  and  the  eighteenth- 
century  diarists,  have  delighted  and  instructed  thou 
sands  who  never  write  and  to  whom  the  solemn 
words  "  scientific  history  "  have  no  meaning.  At  the 
same  time,  to  those  who  would  seek  the  deeper  mean 
ings  and  link  together  cause  and  effect,  they  offer 
far  more  than  barren  collections  of  indiscriminate 
facts,  no  matter  how  well  or  how  scientifically  ar 
ranged.  Herodotus  may  be  loose  and  inaccurate,  and 
Suetonius  may  be  malignant  and  filled  with  error, 
but  what  light  shines  from  the  one  upon  the  ancient 
civilizations  of  Asia  Minor  and  Egypt,  and  how  could 
we  ever  realize  the  dark  shadows  which  overhung  the 
glories  of  the  Csesars  without  the  grim  pictures  of  the 
other  ?  We  should  fare  ill  in  any  attempt  to  under 
stand  from  mouldering  parchments  alone  the  wonder 
ful  century  which  gave  to  France  her  royal  saint  and 
the  art  which  produced  the  Sainte-Chapelle  if  we  could 


HISTORY  91 

not  read  the  simple  words  of  Joinville.  The  English 
and  French  wars  live  for  us  in  the  rambling  pages  of 
Froissart ;  Pepys,  besides  laying  bare  a  human  soul, 
tells  more  of  what  the  Restoration  really  was  than 
all  the  professed  historians  then  or  since ;  in  Walpole, 
greatest  of  English  letter-writers,  we  know  the  Eng 
land  of  the  second  and  third  Georges ;  and  in  Franklin 
we  can  discover  the  secret  of  the  loss  of  the  American 
colonies.  In  all  alike  we  get  the  atmosphere  of  the 
times,  we  learn  to  know  man  as  he  then  was  in  those 
various  countries  and  widely  separated  periods.  Such 
knowledge  can  be  obtained  only  from  men  who  had 
literary  power,  observation,  and  imagination.  With 
out  such  knowledge  "  scientific  history  "  cannot  make 
a  beginning  even,  cannot  advance  a  step.  With  it  the 
seeker  for  cause  and  effect  can  find  as  long  a  chain  as 
he  may  wish  to  forge  and  as  many  deductions  as  he 
may  desire  to  draw.  The  "  gossip "  which  is  also 
literature  is  the  best  foundation  for  history,  and  that 
which  is  not  literature  is,  after  all,  merely  a  collection 
of  the  unclassified  facts  so  dear  to  the  scientific  histo 
rian,  who  thinks  they  can  be  made  alive  by  arrange 
ment  alone.  Let  us  not,  then,  be  too  quick  to  throw 
aside  "gossip"  without  discrimination,  for  when  it 
has  a  high  literary  quality  it  will  outlive  scientific 
history  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  will,  in  the  long 
run,  teach  them  more  about  themselves  and  about 
their  race  than  the  wisest  collector  and  classifier  of 


92  HISTORY 

facts  who  ever  lived,  because  men  will  read  the 
"  gossip  "  and  fall  asleep  over  the  reasoned  catalogue. 
So  much,  then,  for  the  unscientific,  unphilosophical, 
disconnected,  desultory  history,  whether  great  litera 
ture  or  not,  which  we  are  quite  ready  to  call  "gossip,'* 
and  to  speak  of  patronizingly  as  an  inferior  thing,  but 
which  most  of  us  in  our  heart  of  hearts  really  like 
better  than  any  other.  Let  us  leave  it  with  all  good 
wishes  for  the  pleasure  it  has  given  us  and  the  pro 
found  instruction  it  has  offered  to  those  who  seek  in 
struction  diligently,  and  come  to  the  superior  function 
of  history,  the  true  history  which,  relying  solely  upon 
itself  and  not  upon  the  reader,  aspires  not  only  to 
instruct  and  inform,  but  to  explain  man  to  himself. 
Of  its  importance  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  still  less  of 
its  seriousness.  History  in  this  aspect  may  easily  fail 
to  be  amusing ;  if  it  is  not  literature  also,  it  will  prob 
ably  fail  to  be  anything  else,  but  properly  written  it 
cannot  be  otherwise  than  profoundly  important  and  in 
teresting.  Here  in  this  HISTORY  OF  THE  NATIONS,  and 
in  countless  other  volumes,  lie  the  garnered  facts,  ever 
being  increased  and  ever  shifting  in  their  propor 
tionate  importance  and  in  their  relation  to  each  other. 
What  is  the  purpose  of  history  in  dealing  with  these 
facts,  if  in  itself  it  is  to  be  of  any  real  value  in  the 
largest  sense?  There  have  been  many  answers  to 
this  question,  many  essays,  most  of  them,  it  must  be 
confessed,  rather  dreary,  replying  at  length  as  to  the 


HISTORY  93 

functions  and  uses  of  history.  Setting  aside  as  alien 
to  what  we  are  now  considering  all  that  vast  and 
valuable  mass  which  may  be  classified  as  "  gossip," 
and  which  is  at  the  lowest  estimate  certainly  raw 
material,  the  object  of  history  or  of  the  study  of  his 
tory  may  be  briefly  stated.  There  is,  to  begin  with, 
the  old,  classical,  and  conventional  phrase  that  history 
is  philosophy  teaching  by  example,  which  means  little 
or  nothing.  Napoleon  said  that  "history  was  the 
fable  agreed  upon,"  the  quick  utterance  of  a  great 
genius  who  had  never  gone  beyond  the  "gossip." 
Disraeli,  readiest  and  most  epigrammatic,  perhaps,  of 
the  more  modern  public  men  —  certainly  the  most 
un-English  —  saw  use  in  history  only  as  an  explana 
tion  of  the  past,  an  excellent  definition,  but  so  limi 
ted  as  to  make  history  of  but  little  worth  if  it  cannot 
pass  these  bounds.  Emerson,  in  his  vaguely  beautiful 
essay,  defines  history  as  the  record  of  man,  tells  us 
that  we  are  history,  and  that  history  is  ourselves ;  in 
more  prosaic  words,  that  history  is  the  explanation  of 
the  present.  Add  this  definition  to  that  of  Disraeli 
and  we  have  advanced  a  goodly  distance,  but  history 
must  be  yet  more  and  must  go  further  still  if  it  is  to 
fulfil  its  whole  function. 

In  a  very  recent  essay  Mr.  George  Trevelyan  has 
described  the  function  of  history  in  a  manner  as  fine 
as  his  conception  of  the  work  of  the  historian  is  noble 
and  true.  The  three  functions  of  history  he  defines 


94  HISTORY 

as  teaching  the  lessons  of  political  wisdom,  spreading 
the  knowledge  of  past  ideas  and  of  great  men,  and, 
most  important  of  all,  "  causing  us  in  moments  of 
diviner  solitude  to  feel  the  poetry  of  time."  The 
first  two  functions  are  of  great  worth,  and  it  was 
never  more  necessary  to  preach  their  virtue  and  ne 
cessity  than  now,  but  they  are  the  more  immediate 
achievements  of  history,  inseparable  from  it  when 
rightly  written,  and  do  not  reach  that  larger  and 
more  ultimate  purpose  which  I  am  seeking  to  find  and 
express  here.  It  is  in  the  third  aspect  that  Mr. 
Trevelyan  touches  history  in  its  highest  range,  when 
he  says  that  it  ought  to  make  us  feel  the  poetry  of 
time  and  the  passing  of  the  race  through  many  epochs 
along  the  highway  of  eternity. 

"  Each  changing  place  with  that  which  goes  before, 
In  sequent  toil  all  forward  do  contend." 

Such  is  the  poetry  of  time,  and  there  lies  hid  the 
secret  of  man  and  his  relation  to  the  universe. 

To  be  more  explicit,  history  must,  it  is  true,  explain 
the  past  as  Disraeli  wished,  and  the  present,  as  Emer 
son  desired.  But  that  is  not  enough.  Perhaps  it  is 
impossible  that  it  should  do  more ;  but  history,  if  it  is 
carried  to  the  full  height  of  our  conception,  ought 
also  to  enable  us  to  see  into  the  future,  to  calculate  in 
some  degree  the  movement  of  the  race  as  we  now  cal 
culate  the  orbit  of  the  stars,  and  read  in  the  past, 


HISTORY  95 

whether  dim  or  luminous,  a  connected  story  and  a 
pervading  law.  In  other  words,  history  in  the  ulti 
mate  analysis  ought  to  give  us  a  theory  of  the  uni 
verse  as  well  as  of  human  life  and  action.  Has  this 
been  done  ?  Have  these  masses  of  facts,  gathered  of 
late  with  such  ant-like  diligence,  yet  been  brought 
into  such  connection?  Have  they  been  so  ordered 
and  mastered  as  to  tell  a  coherent  story  and  thus  ex 
plain  to  us  the  course  of  human  life  and  conduct  ?  If 
they  have  not,  then  history  has  thus  far  failed  of  its 
final  purpose  in  whole  or  in  part. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  just  closed  we  have  gone 
clearly  beyond  the  simple-minded  writers  of  annals 
and  chronicles.  We  have  learned,  indeed,  to  regard 
annals  and  chronicles,  as  well  as  biographies  and  sta 
tistics  and  every  phase  and  form  of  human  activity, 
as  primarily  so  much  raw  material,  so  many  observa 
tions  to  be  sifted  and  compared  and  grouped  until 
they  afford  a  theory  or  explanation  of  some  sort  for 
the  man  or  the  incident  or  the  events  to  which  they 
relate.  But  have  we  by  this  method  as  yet  deduced 
a  result  which  really  explains  at  once  the  past  and  the 
present,  which  makes  us  not  only  feel  the  poetry  of 
time,  but  which  also  throws  a  bright  light  along  the 
pathway  of  the  future  ?  Have  we  attained  in  any 
degree  to  a  working  hypothesis  which  shall  make 
clear  to  us  the  development  and  fate  of  man  upon 
earth  ?  Unless  we  can  answer  these  questions  quite 


96  HISTORY 

clearly  in  the  affirmative  then  history  has  not  yet  ful 
filled  her  whole  mission,  and  still  sits  by  the  roadside 
like  the  Sphinx  waiting  for  the  traveller  who  can 
guess  her  riddle.  It  is  a  riddle  worth  guessing.  None 
more  so.  The  genius  who  will  draw  out  from  the 
welter  of  recorded  time  a  theory  which  will  explain 
to  man  both  himself  and  his  relation  to  the  universe 
need  fear  comparison  with  no  other  who  has  ever 
lived,  for  he  must  not  only  make  the  great  discovery, 
but  he  must  clothe  it  in  words  which  will  live  as  liter 
ature  and  touch  it  with  an  imagination  which  will 
reach  the  heart  of  humanity  and  endure  like  the 
poetry  of  those  who  sang  for  the  people  when  the 
world  was  young. 

Let  us  see,  however,  what  has  been  accomplished ; 
let  us  at  least  try  to  measure  "  the  petty  done,  the 
undone  vast."  We  have  brought  together  immense 
masses  of  facts,  in  some  cases  far  too  many  —  so 
much  so  that  their  very  density  has  caused  men  not 
infrequently  to  lose  their  way  among  details,  and, 
having  deprived  them  of  the  sense  of  proportion,  has 
led  them  to  mistake  the  particular  for  the  general. 
We  are,  indeed,  more  likely  now  to  suffer  from  having 
too  many  facts  than  too  few.  By  no  possibility  can 
we  have,  in  anything  which  relates  to  human  affairs, 
all  the  facts.  Even  some  of  the  most  tangible  and 
external  escape  us;  and  of  the  tangle  of  passions, 
emotions,  and  desires  which  so  largely  determine  the 


HISTORY  97 

course  of  human  events  we  can  know  but  little,  and 
must  always  be  content  with  large  inferences  and 
with  a  psychology  of  the  masses,  because  that  of  in 
dividuals,  except  in  a  few  isolated  instances,  is  lost  to 
us  forever.  Unable,  therefore,  to  know  all  the  facts, 
we  must  proceed  by  selection  and  by  generalizations 
based  on  those  dominating  types  which  have  been 
chosen  through  the  instinct  and  the  imagination,  the 
very  qualities  which  no  amount  of  mere  training  will 
give.  The  besetting  danger  of  the  time  lies  in  the 
tendency  to  reverence  mere  heaps  of  facts  and  to  treat 
one  fact,  because  it  is  such,  as  equal  in  value  to  every 
other  —  a  doctrine  much  beloved  by  those  who  would 
separate  history  from  literature  and  make  it  nothing 
more  than  a  series  of  measurements  or  a  classified 
catalogue.  Facts  in  themselves  have  no  value  except 
as  the  material  from  which  the  men  of  high  and  co 
ordinating  intelligence  can,  by  selecting  and  rejecting, 
bring  forth  a  theory,  a  philosophy,  or  a  story  wilich 
the  world  will  be  able  to  read  and  understand  because 
it  is  helped  to  do  so  by  all  the  charm  and  all  the  light 
which  literary  art  and  historic  imagination  can  give. 
A  "  scientific  history,"  crammed  with  facts,  well  ar 
ranged,  but  unreadable,  and  at  the  same  time  devoid 
of  art  and  selection,  is,  perhaps,  as  sad  a  monument 
of  misspent  labor  as  human  vanity  can  show.  None 
the  less,  after  all  deductions,  the  accumulation  of 
facts,  if  properly  used  and  then  supplemented  by 


98  HISTORY 

all  the  resources  of  literary  art,  is  absolutely  essential 
to  the  highest  history,  for  laws  governing  human  de 
velopment  rest,  like  those  of  science,  in  large  degree 
on  the  number  of  recorded  observations,  and  find  in 
that  way  control  and  correction.  This  is  especially 
true  in  the  case  of  archaeology,  which  is  daily  adding 
so  enormously  to  our  knowledge  of  early  civilizations 
in  Egypt,  Mesopotamia,  and  Asia  Minor,  as  well  as  in 
the  Greek  islands  and  peninsula,  and  which  thus 
enables  us  to  make  those  comparisons,  stretching  over 
long  periods  of  time,  upon  which  any  stable  theory 
of  the  movement  of  civilized  mankind  must  ulti 
mately  rest.  To  this  must  also  be  added  the  scientific 
investigation  into  the  condition  of  prehistoric  man 
and  of  those  primitive  tribes  and  races  who  are  our 
prehistoric  contemporaries,  from  which  alone  it  is  pos 
sible  to  draw  the  widest  deductions  as  to  the  primary 
development  of  what  we  call  civilized  man.  To  put 
this  first  proposition  in  a  few  words,  we  have  in  the  last 
one  hundred  years  gathered,  and  in  a  large  measure  ar 
ranged  intelligently,  the  necessary  material  to  which  we 
are  still  adding,  and  which  is  an  essential  preliminary 
to  writing  history  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word. 

We  have  also  passed  definitely  and  finally  out  of 
the  stage  where  history  was  considered  too  solemn 
and  too  dignified  to  have  any  of  the  attractions  of 
what  is  frankly  "  gossip,"  and  yet  remained  nothing 
but  a  stringing  together  of  facts,  as  if  they  were 


HISTORY  99 

single  beads,  each  separated  from  the  others  by  a 
dividing  and  impassable  knot.  The  habit  is  now 
ingrained  in  all  writers  of  history,  even  if  they  are 
merely  dealing  with  an  episode  or  preparing  a  mono 
graph,  to  lead  up  from  cause  to  effect,  to  point  out 
the  sources  of  an  event,  the  culmination  of  the  vari 
ous  compelling  forces  and  the  ultimate  results,  or  else 
to  arrange  the  narrative  in  such  wise  that  the  reader 
must  perforce  draw  his  own  deductions,  and  thus 
learn  the  lesson  which  the  author  desires  to  impart. 
This  method  of  dealing  with  history  varies,  of  course, 
most  widely  in  the  extent  of  its  application.  It  may 
be  applied  to  a  single  incident  or  to  the  occurrences 
of  a  few  years ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  stretch 
over  the  centuries,  seeking  in  past  generations  the 
distant  conditions  from  which  sprang  finally  some 
great  event ;  or,  again,  it  may  strive  to  connect  with 
the  phenomena  of  our  modern  times  remote  causes 
which  are  dimly  discerned  in  the  dawn  of  civilization, 
and  in  this  way  establish  a  law  which  shall  govern 
the  entire  movement  of  humanity. 

It  is  this  search  for  cause  and  effect  which  has  been 
the  distinguishing  feature  of  historical  work  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  No  doubt  the  practice  has  ex 
isted,  sporadically  at  least,  since  history  began  to  be 
written ;  but  in  the  last  century  it  became  the  domi 
nant  note,  the  ruling  characteristic  to  which  all  writ 
ers  aspired,  although  naturally  with  varying  degrees 


100  HISTORY 

of  success.  That  which  we  seek  here  is  to  estimate 
approximately  to  what  point  the  increased  knowledge, 
the  multiplied  observations,  and  the  system  of  tracing 
out  cause  and  effect  have  brought  us  on  the  road  to 
fulfilling  the  highest  function  of  history.  We  can  see 
very  readily  that  in  the  explanation  of  the  past  and 
the  present  much  has  been  achieved.  For  example, 
the  causes  which  led  to  the  revolt  of  the  American 
colonies  against  England,  or  to  the  French  Revolu 
tion,  have  been  studied  not  only  in  the  immediately 
preceding  years,  but  have  been  patiently  tracked 
through  the  centuries,  and  sought  not  merely  in  po 
litical  and  economic  conditions,  but  in  the  qualities, 
habits,  and  characteristics  of  the  people,  and  in  the 
attributes  and  ethnic  peculiarities  of  the  stocks  from 
which  these  historic  races  were  formed.  The  time 
when  it  was  possible  to  treat  great  and  violent 
changes  of  this  kind  as  isolated  events,  growing 
suddenly  out  of  surrounding  conditions,  has  passed 
away  never  to  return. 

4  Having  thus  reached  the  point  where  it  is  not  only 
possible  but  habitual  to  explain  philosophically  and 
on  logical  principles  a  past  event,  it  is  but  a  short 
step  to  find  in  past  events,  properly  arranged  and 
treated,  the  explanation  of  the  present  in  any  given 
country,  or  in  any  group  of  countries  similar,  if  not 
identical,  in  race  and  in  the  character  of  their  civili 
zation.  It  is  also  true  that  modern  history,  ad  vane- 


HISTORY  101 

ing  from  the  explanation  of  a  given  event,  or  of  an 
important  era,  by  tracing  its  causes  through  a  long 
succession  of  years,  has  gone  on  to  the  work  of  fol 
lowing  out  through  the  entire  historic  period  tenden 
cies  of  thought  or  art,  of  literature  or  morals,  as  well 
as  the  religious,  economic,  and  political  movements  of 
mankind.  The  results  of  these  investigations  have 
been  more  illuminating,  probably,  than  anything  else 
which  has  been  accomplished.  From  these  researches, 
which  have  embraced  anthropology,  philology,  psy 
chology,  literature,  and  archaeology,  as  well  as  history 
proper,  a  brilliant  light  has  been  cast  upon  much  that 
before  seemed  shrouded  in  hopeless  darkness,  and  a 
multitude  of  problems  which  puzzled  the  will  and 
baffled  the  imagination  have  been  made  plain.  From 
this  source  has  come  the  theory  of  myths  and  folk 
lore  ;  the  development  of  the  identity  of  certain  fun 
damental  religious  beliefs  in  all  the  many  families  of 
mankind ;  the  reduction  to  a  very  small  number  of 
the  absolutely  different  races  of  men;  a  knowledge 
of  the  often  unexplained  migrations  of  vast  bodies  of 
people,  of  the  economic  conditions,  the  trade,  the  com 
merce,  the  industries,  and  the  discoveries  of  minerals, 
which  have  played  such  a  large  and  so  often  a  con 
trolling  part  in  human  affairs,  and  of  the  military 
and  political  attributes  and  tendencies  which  have  so 
largely,  in  appearance  at  least,  determined  the  fate  of 
states  and  empires. 


102  HISTORY 

Yet  the  final  question  is  still  unanswered.  The 
world  still  awaits  a  theory,  or  an  explanation,  of  the 
movement  of  mankind  as  a  whole  which  shall  make 
clear  the  entire  past,  show  whence  we  have  come, 
why  we  have  marched  in  the  manner  recorded  along 
the  highways  of  time,  whither  we  are  going,  and  in 
what  direction  we  must  go,  by  a  proof  as  resistless  as 
the  fall  of  the  apple  to  the  ground,  which,  as  we  as 
sert,  conclusively  demonstrates  what  we  call  the  law 
of  gravitation. 

To  reach  this  ultimate  goal  we  must  have  a  theory 
of  the  universe,  and  the  necessity  of  such  a  theory 
has  been  perceived  more  or  less  dimly,  or  more  or 
less  clearly,  by  all  serious  historians  from  the  time 
when  history  first  began  to  be  written  with  any  other 
purpose  than  that  of  making  a  brief  abstract  and 
chronicle  of  the  time.  The  theory  of  the  universe 
and  of  life  upon  which  historians  proceeded  either 
deliberately  or  unconsciously  down  to  the  latter  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century  was,  broadly  speaking,  the 
theological  theory.  The  doctrines,  the  dogmas,  and 
the  formulas  of  theologians  and  priests  furnished  the 
underlying  theory  upon  which  historians  worked  out 
their  results,  and  this  was  as  true  of  the  East  as  of 
the  West,  of  Asia  as  of  Europe,  of  the  writers  of  an 
tiquity  as  of  the  schoolmen  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In 
the  last  analysis  history  fell  back  upon  theology,  and 
accepted  its  formulas  and  its  philosophy  as  giving 


HISTORY  103 

the  final  answer  whenever  the  historian  sought  to  set 
forth  an  explanation  of  man's  existence  upon  earth, 
or  to  show  the  connection  and  relation  of  events  in 
the  life  of  humanity. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  spirit  of  scepticism 
and  inquiry  rose  up  and  took  possession  of  the 
thought  of  Western  civilization.  In  dealing  with 
history  its  resources  were  meagre,  its  material  was 
limited,  and  its  methods  crude.  Voltaire,  who  rep 
resented  that  sceptical  spirit  in  its  most  powerful 
and  concentrated  form,  and  who  exercised  a  wide 
and  profound  influence  to  a  degree  which  it  is  now 
difficult  even  to  imagine,  was  simply  destructive.  He 
struck  at  the  theological  conceptions  aud  explana 
tions  of  past  events  with  penetrating  force,  and  with 
weapons  of  the  keenest  edge,  but  the  simplicity  of  his 
attack  is  only  equalled  by  his  ignorance  of  the  real 
meaning  of  the  traditions  and  habits  of  thought  at 
which  he  aimed  his  blows.  None  the  less  the  work 
of  the  eighteenth  century  was  effective  so  far  as  it 
went.  It  tore  the  theological  theories  of  the  universe 
to  tatters,  and  scattered  the  fragments  to  the  four 
winds  of  heaven.  It  was  unable  to  replace  that  which 
it  destroyed,  but  it  cleared  the  ground,  and  to  this 
inheritance  the  next  century  succeeded.  The  old 
theories  were  discredited.  The  way  was  open  to 
construct  a  new  one. 

The  nineteenth  century  was  pre-eminently  scien- 


104  HISTORY 

tific.  Science  during  that  period  was  the  ruling  force 
in  the  domain  of  thought,  and  its  discoveries  and  ad 
vances  are  the  monuments  of  its  marvellous  success. 
But  its  influence  has  spread  far  beyond  its  own  prov 
ince.  In  every  direction  the  methods  of  science  have 
been  adopted,  and  its  standards  set  up  as  the  best 
methods  and  the  loftiest  standards  for  all  forms  of 
thought  and  inquiry.  History,  therefore,  during  the 
last  hundred  years  has  sought  to  make  itself  and  to 
call  itself  scientific  as  the  highest  quality  at  which  it 
could  aim ;  and  the  devotion  to  facts,  the  search  for 
truth  at  all  costs,  the  rigid  deductions,  coldly  regard 
less  of  sentiment  or  prejudice,  have  all  been  attributes 
borrowed  from  science,  and  of  immense  value  to  his 
torical  results.  The  study  of  history  pursued  in  this 
way,  and  carried  into  adjoining  fields  of  research  like 
anthropology,  archaeology,  and  philology,  has  brought 
about  a  complete  readjustment  of  many  of  our  ideas 
as  to  the  development  of  man  and  his  relations  to  the 
universe.  Indeed,  it  is  scarcely  realized  how  pene 
trating  the  influence  of  history  governed  by  scientific 
methods  has  been,  and  what  a  revolution  it  has 
wrought,  for  the  most  part  quite  insensibly,  in  all 
our  conceptions  as  to  the  existence,  meaning,  and 
fate  of  the  human  race. 

That  this  has  been  accomplished  at  a  loss,  and  a 
serious  loss,  to  history  as  literature  can  hardly  be 
denied.  Modern  history  of  the  purely  scientific  and 


HISTORY  105 

judicial  variety  has  thus  far  been  unable  fully  to  sus 
tain  the  literary  glories  of  the  past.  Thucydides  and 
Tacitus  and  Gibbon  were  by  no  means  wanting  in  a 
theory  of  the  universe,  or  of  the  life  of  man.  They 
were  masters  of  their  subjects  and  of  their  material, 
and  they  were  also  most  distinctly  philosophers,  rea- 
soners,  and  thinkers,  although  not  given  over  to  mod 
ern  scientific  methods ;  yet  they  still  stand  alone  and 
unrivalled  in  literature,  and  would  wonder  greatly  to 
be  informed  that  we  cannot  have  serious  history  or  a 
philosophy  of  life  until  we  cease  to  be  picturesque. 
They  would  marvel  even  more  to  be  told  that  it  is 
the  fashion  to  hold  that  we  must  be  "judicial"  to 
the  point  of  never  taking  sides,  and  usually  of  sus 
taining  a  paradox ;  that  if  we  would  really  be  histo 
rians  we  must  assume  that  the  accepted  opinion  is 
wrong  because  it  is  accepted,  and  must  close  our  eyes 
firmly  to  the  splendid  pageant  of  the  years  which 
have  gone  if  we  would  win  the  praise  of  the  antiqua 
rian,  the  specialist,  or  the  learned  society.  We  owe 
much  to  the  adoption  of  scientific  methods  in  history ; 
but  if  we  give  way  to  the  intolerable  dogma  that  his 
tory,  in  order  to  be  really  scientific,  must  divest  itself 
of  all  connection  with  literature,  it  would  be  better 
never  to  have  attempted  those  methods,  and  to  have 
blundered  along  in  the  old  way.  When  Mr.  Bury, 
the  Regius  Professor  of  History  at  Cambridge,  an 
nounces  that  "  history  is  not  a  branch  of  literature," 


106  HISTORY 

he  advances  a  proposition  which,  if  adopted,  would 
kill  history,  and  which  could  by  no  possibility  give 
us  science  in  its  place.  Imagination  is  no  doubt  one 
important  quality  among  others  in  the  really  great 
men  of  science,  but  it  is  absolutely  essential  to  the 
great  historian,  for  without  imagination  no  history 
worthy  of  the  name  can  be  written.  Very  valuable 
results  can  be  achieved  without  it  in  the  physical 
sciences,  because  their  phenomena  are  devoid  of  the 
spiritual  and  emotional  elements ;  but  the  history  of 
man  is  in  large  measure  governed,  or  modified,  by 
passion,  sentiment,  and  emotion,  and  cannot  be 
gauged,  or  understood,  without  the  sympathy  and 
the  perception  which  only  imagination  and  the  dra 
matic  instinct  can  give.  Moreover,  history  is  utterly 
vain  unless  men  can  learn  something  from  it  •  they 
cannot  learn  unless  they  read,  and  they  will  neither 
read  nor  understand  unless  the  theory  or  the  doctrine 
drawn  forth  from  the  winnowed  facts  is  presented  to 
them  with  all  the  grace  and  force  which  style  can 
give,  and  with  all  the  resources  of  a  beautiful  literary 
art.  The  worst  enemies  of  scientific  methods  are 
those  who  would,  in  the  name  of  science,  reduce 
history  to  a  sifted  dust-heap,  and  who  decry  the 
art  of  literature  because  they  cannot  master  it, 
although  without  it  history  has  never  yet  been 
written,  and  never  will  be  able  to  speak  to  men, 
or  to  give  them  the  explanation  of  their  existence, 


HISTORY  107 

if  that  great  secret  is  ever  discovered  in  all  its 
completeness. 

But  the  literary  side  of  historical  development, 
without  which  it  cannot  continue,  is  not,  after  all, 
what  concerns  us  here  further  than  to  point  out  its 
absolute  necessity,  if  we  would  effect  anything  of 
lasting  worth.  It  is  to  the  achievements  of  modern 
scientific  history,  not  yet  ruined  by  its  unreasoning 
devotees,  that  we  must  look  for  the  dial  hand  of 
progress ;  and  however  dryly  the  fashion  of  the  mo 
ment  or  personal  incapacity  may  have  compelled  his 
torians  to  state  the  conclusions  thus  reached,  here  are 
to  be  found  the  latest  steps  which  have  been  taken 
toward  the  goal  of  that  history  which  shall  give  us, 
if  such  a  thing  is  possible,  the  full  explanation  which 
we  seek.  It  is  along  the  lines  followed  by  modern 
history  that  we  must  proceed  in  our  quest,  but  thus 
far  these  lines  have  been  separate.  One  subject  or 
one  tendency  has  in  turn  and  each  by  itself  been 
traced  out  from  the  beginning,  and  the  theory  or  law 
which  has  governed  in  each  case  has  frequently  been 
evolved  and  stated  with  the  utmost  care  and  acute- 
ness.  But  the  lines  have  not  yet  converged,  the 
theories  have  not  yet  been  grouped,  the  various  laws 
still  await  the  genius  who  shall  cast  them  into  a  code. 

The  stupendous  difficulties  of  the  task  must  not  be 
underestimated.  Perhaps  it  is  beyond  the  power  of 
man  to  develop  and  state  a  great  law  of  life,  a  coin- 


108  HISTORY 

prehensive  theory  of  the  universe,  when  he  must  per 
force  rest  it  not  merely  upon  a  vast  mass  of  recorded 
observations  and  classified  facts,  but  must  throughout 
allow  for  that  which  no  other  scientific  man  need 
consider  —  the  unending  perturbations  caused  by 
human  passion,  human  emotion,  and  unreasoning 
animal  instincts.  One  thing  alone  is  certain :  no 
single  theory  dealing  with  one  set  of  facts  and  one 
set  of  passions  and  tendencies  can  ever  explain  every 
thing.  The  forces  which  have  started  the  great 
migrations,  the  religious  passions,  the  political  apti 
tudes,  can  each  explain  much ;  the  economic  move 
ment  can  probably  explain  more  than  any  single  clew, 
and  yet  no  one  of  them  alone  is  sufficient  to  make 
clear  all  that  has  happened  and  weave  the  many 
threads  into  a  final  answer  to  the  riddle  of  the 
Sphinx,  who  waits  and  watches  by  the  roadside  as  the 
procession  of  mankind  marches  by  in  endless  files. 
Yet  is  there  here  no  reason  for  discouragement. 
Every  failure  of  a  proper  attempt  to  reach  that  final 
and  complete  solution  of  the  great  enigma  which  his 
tory  alone  can  give,  if  it  is  ever  to  be  given  at  all,  has 
advanced  us  in  knowledge.  It  is  much  better  to  look 
at  what  has  been  accomplished  than  to  sigh  over  the 
undone,  fold  our  hands  in  despair  and  content  our 
selves  by  saying,  like  the  scientific  professor  of  his 
tory,  that  all  we  can  do  is  to  heap  up  more  facts  for 
distant  generations  to  use.  The  answer  may  not  yet 


HISTORY  109 

have  been  found ;  but  the  light  is  growing  brighter, 
and  the  prospect  of  attaining  to  a  complete  reply,  if 
no  nearer,  seems  at  least  clearer  than  ever  before. 
Even  to  realize  where  we  fall  short  is,  if  not  very 
hopeful,  very  instructive,  and  opens  the  only  possible 
path  to  future  success. 

The  theological  theory,  then,  which  was  so  long 
dominant  has  been  swept  away,  and  history  has  fallen 
under  the  control  of  scientific  processes.  It  has  not 
only  assimilated  the  methods  of  science,  but  it  has 
striven  to  deduce  from  its  own  phenomena  the  doc 
trines  which  science  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nine 
teenth  century  adopted  and  promulgated.  It  has,  in 
short,  substituted  for  the  theological  theory  that  of 
science.  So  far  as  it  has  had  any  definite  purpose  it 
has  aimed  to  show,  like  the  science  of  the  last  fifty 
years,  that  the  true  explanation  of  man's  existence 
and  movements  is  mechanical;  that  at  bottom  we 
must  fall  back  on  the  "  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms," 
and  that  a  continuous  evolution  is  the  sole  guide  in 
the  maze  of  human  affairs,  as  it  has  been  partially 
shown  to  be  in  the  animal  world.  And  now,  even 
while  history  is  advancing  on  these  lines,  science  is 
pausing  in  doubt,  the  mechanical  theory  seems  to  be 
breaking  down,  the  "fortuitous  course  of  atoms"  is 
being  abandoned,  the  limitations  of  evolution  are  be 
coming  constantly  clearer,  the  younger  biologists  no 
longer  trust  implicitly  the  dogmas  of  the  later  years, 


110  HISTORY 

and  Lord  Kelvin  announces  that  the  last  word  of  the 
latest  science  indicates  a  reversion  to  the  doctrine  of 
a  governing  law.  Is  history  to  go  on  in  the  old 
ways,  which  but  yesterday  were  new,  or  is  it  to  pause, 
as  science  has  paused,  and  turn  again,  not  to  the  old 
theological  theory,  but  to  one  which  involves  a 
general  and  permanent  law  of  the  universe  and 
of  life? 

What  has  history  herself  to  say,  speaking  from  her 
own  experience  and  enlightened  by  her  own  efforts  ? 
What  have  the  profound  research  and  the  acute  de 
ductions  of  these  later  years  to  produce  by  way  of 
solving  the  problem  of  what  her  future  course  shall 
be  ?  Has  history  been  able  to  show  a  process  of  evo 
lution  so  continuous  as  at  once  to  demonstrate  that 
men  from  the  beginning,  despite  many  aberrations, 
have  moved  along  one  line,  compelled  thereto  by  en 
vironment  and  by  their  physical  and  mental  structure, 
thus  proving  that  humanity  has  been  governed  by 
mechanical  processes  as  completely  as  science  very 
recently  held  all  physical  developments  to  be,  whether 
in  the  heavens  above  or  in  the  earth  benea.th  ?  Or,  on 
the  other  hand,  has  history,  like  science,  apparently 
failed  to  maintain  the  mechanical  theory  and  found 
the  "fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms"  insufficient  to 
support  the  facts  which  she  herself  has  brought  to 
light  ?  Has  the  Darwinian  doctrine  of  evolution  as 
applied  to  the  events  of  history  disclosed  there  also 


HISTORY  111 

limitations  which  make  it  appear  incomplete  and  at 
best  tentative? 

Looking  broadly  at  the  situation  as  it  is  to-day,  the 
story  of  man  upon  earth  seems  to  fall  into  two  divi 
sions,  the  prehistoric  and  the  historic  periods,  the 
former  reaching  back  through  unnumbered  years 
possibly  to  the  tertiary  rock,  if  we  may  believe  the 
traces  found  in  Australia,  the  latter  so  brief  in  com 
parison  as  to  seem  but  as  yesterday  or  as  a  watch  in 
the  night.  The  earliest  knowledge,  however,  which 
can  in  any  proper  sense  be  called  historical,  or  which 
in  other  words  rests  upon  records  of  any  sort,  is  im 
parted  to  us  by  the  remains  of  the  civilizations  of 
Egypt,  Mesopotamia,  and  western  Asia.  These  civi 
lizations,  as  revealed  to  us  by  the  latest  archaeological 
discoveries,  appear  to  have  been  substantially  at  the 
point  where  we  ourselves  were  a  century  ago,  and  if 
not  complete  were  certainly  in  a  stage  of  high  devel 
opment.  How  and  by  what  processes  that  position 
was  reached,  we  do  not  and  probably  can  never  know. 
A  long  road  certainly  had  been  travelled  before  it  was 
attained.  The  starting-point  is  dim.  The  earliest 
human  skulls  which  have  been  found  do  not  differ 
more  widely  in  size  and  shape  from  the  skulls  of  men 
to-day  than  the  skulls  of  several  actually  existent 
races  vary  from  each  other.  They  leave  unbridged 
and  substantially  undiminished  the  gulf  which  yawns 
between  the  skulls  of  races  now  existent  and  the  most 


112  HISTORY 

highly  developed  ape.  Man,  therefore,  as  we  know 
him,  is  not  fundamentally  different  physically  from 
the  earliest  progenitor  who  can  be  distinctly  recog 
nized  as  a  man,  a  human  being  in  our  sense  of  the 
word.  But  the  gap  between  the  earliest  man  known 
to  us,  between  the  man  of  the  drift  or  the  shell  heap, 
for  instance,  and  the  neolithic  man,  is  immense, 
although  it  is  trifling  compared  to  the  chasm  which 
separates  the  man  of  flints  from  the  man  who  lived 
under  the  earliest  Egyptian  dynasties,  who  reared 
the  first  buildings  by  the  Nile  or  who  constructed  the 
first  palaces  of  Babylonia,  drained  the  streets  and 
houses  of  her  cities  and  codified  her  laws.  We  find 
man  at  the  outset  with  nothing  apparently  except  the 
discovery  of  fire,  although  we  must  infer  a  period 
when  even  the  use  of  fire  was  unknown ;  and  then 
we  find  him  with  weapons  of  stone,  at  first  rudely  and 
then  ingeniously  worked ;  with  pottery  and  with  in 
dications  of  some  use  of  metals  in  the  form  of  pins  or 
copper  models  of  stone  implements  for  war  or  the 
chase.  Then  we  plunge  into  darkness  again,  and  when 
we  emerge  we  behold  a  man  possessed  of  language 
and  written  characters,  who  has  organized  society 
and  government  and  enacted  laws  ;  who  has  invented 
the  wheel  for  locomotion,  and  mastered  the  applica 
tion  of  animal  or  muscular  power ;  who  has  devel 
oped  a  splendid  architecture  and  a  noble  art ;  who 
understands  engineering,  carries  on  an  extensive  com- 


HISTORY  113 

merce,  marshals  armies  and  conducts  wars  with 
ordered  legions.  The  distance  from  the  man  who 
applied  and  controlled  fire,  the  greatest  single  dis 
covery  ever  made,  and  from  the  later  man  who  was 
able  to  chip  stone,  fabricate  weapons,  and  make 
pottery,  to  the  man  who  could  do  all  which  is  re 
vealed  at  the  dawn  of  history,  staggers  imagination 
when  we  strive  to  guess  at  what  had  happened  and 
been  accomplished  in  the  interval.  We  seem  to  pass 
at  a  single  bound  from  the  dimly  conceived  being 
who,  stark  naked  or  dressed  perhaps  in  skins,  was 
savage  to  a  degree  beyond  our  power  of  description, 
and  who  waged  an  unequal  war  with  monstrous  ani 
mals,  to  men  who  are  so  like  us  in  comparison  with 
what  had  gone  before,  that  it  seems  as  if  the  solemn 
Egyptian  kings  and  the  makers  of  the  winged  bulls 
were  our  own  kin  and  lived  but  yesterday  instead  of 
dwelling  on  the  misty  verge  of  recorded  time.  In 
that  long  interval  which  elapsed  between  the  earliest 
trace  of  man  onward  and  upward  from  the  discovery 
of  fire  to  the  time  of  these  ancient  civilizations,  what 
happened  ?  By  what  steps  had  man,  or  rather  certain 
tribes  and  races  of  men,  climbed  to  such  a  height  ? 
We  do  not  know,  probably  we  never  shall  know  more 
than  reasonable  conjecture  can  tell ;  yet  the  inference 
seems  irresistible,  inevitable  we  may  almost  say,  that 
during  that  period  of  darkness  there  was  a  steady 
process  of  evolution  advancing  slowly  but  surely  by 


114  HISTORY 

the  discovery  and  development  of  forces  which  radi 
cally  changed  the  environment  and  all  the  conditions 
surrounding  the  race  to  a  position  where  man  was 
master  of  essentially  all  that  he  possessed  a  hundred 
years  ago.  These  ancient  civilizations  and  their  suc 
cessors  ripen  as  we  approach  the  Christian  era.  Their 
art  was  refined,  their  language  was  perfected,  their 
literature  attained  to  imperishable  beauty ;  they 
widened  their  geography  and  increased  the  sum  of 
knowledge,  but  there  was  no  radical  change  of  envi 
ronment,  there  were  no  new  forces  to  compel  such  a 
change.  In  the  earliest  civilizations  really  known  to 
us  we  find  that  men  had  arms  and  arts,  architec 
ture  and  letters,  organized  government  and  systems  of 
laws ;  commerce,  war,  armies,  means  of  transporta 
tion  by  land  and  water.  All  these  things  they  per 
fected  down  to  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire ;  but 
they  added  no  new  force  like  fire  or  the  wheel,  like 
linguistic  symbols  or  organized  society,  such  as  they 
had  brought  slowly  forth  in  the  prehistoric  days. 

When  the  empire  of  Rome  went  to  pieces  Western 
Europe  sank  into  a  period  of  anarchy,  in  which  all 
the  arts,  whether  ornamental  or  economic,  and  all 
forms  of  organization  retrograded,  and  the  period 
known  as  the  Dark  Ages  set  in.  The  traditions 
of  science  and  learning,  of  literature  and  art,  were 
kept  alive  only  by  Byzantium  in  the  East,  where 
they  were  destined  to  disappear  under  the  onset  of 


HISTORY  115 

the  Ottoman  Turks,  and  by  the  Moors  in  Spain. 
Slowly  and  painfully  new  systems,  new  states,  and 
a  new  social  order  were  evolved  from  the  welter 
of  destruction  which  followed  the  downfall  of  Kome ; 
and  out  of  these  new  movements  came  at  last  the 
Renaissance,  the  revival  of  learning,  the  junction 
of  the  present  with  the  classical  past,  and  thence 
modern  civilization.  But  through  all  these  chances 
and  changes,  alike  through  the  rise  and  fall  of  Egypt 
and  Chaldea,  of  Assyria  and  Persia,  through  the  su 
premacy  of  Greece  and  the  final  dominion  of  Rome, 
as  well  as  through  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  growth 
of  our  modern  civilization,  there  was  no  fundamental 
change  in  the  conditions  and  achievements  such  as  we 
find  indicated  at  the  close  of  the  prehistoric  period. 
No  new  forces  had  come  into  play  to  alter  the  devel 
opment  of  man.  States  and  empires  had  waxed  and 
waned;  there  had  been  great  migrations  of  peoples, 
great  shiftings  of  the  centres  of  military,  political, 
and  economic  power.  We  can  trace  these  move 
ments,  we  know  their  causes,  we  understand  the 
influence  of  mineral  wealth  and  of  trade  routes, 
but  the  foundations  are  undisturbed.  In  the  eigh 
teenth  century,  as  in  the  time  of  the  earliest  Egyptian 
dynasty,  men  still  depend  on  themselves  and  on  ani 
mals  as  the  source  of  power ;  they  have  the  wheel  for 
transportation,  the  written  word  for  communication  ; 
they  reap  and  sow  and  build  and  have  literature  and 


116  HISTORY 

the  fine  arts.  The  bounds  of  knowledge  have  widened, 
broadening  far  in  the  days  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and 
then  contracting  after  the  fall  of  the  empire  only  to 
widen  again  after  the  fourteenth  century  and  then 
stretch  farther  and  farther  out  with  each  succeeding 
year.  Still  there  is  no  vital  change.  The  art  of  war 
is  revolutionized  by  the  introduction  of  gunpowder, 
the  acquisition  and  preservation  of  knowledge  are 
made  easy  by  the  invention  of  printing;  but  these 
two  things  apart,  the  man  of  the  eighteenth  century 
does  not  differ  essentially  from  the  Egyptian  or  the 
Babylonian,  from  the  Greek  or  the  Roman,  in  the  con 
ditions  of  life  or  in  his  relations  to  the  earth  and  his 
fellow-men.  He  still  travels  with  the  horse  on  land 
and  with  the  wind  or  the  oar  at  sea.  His  journeys 
are  still  along  paths  and  trails  and  roads  or  by  canals, 
rivers,  and  ocean.  He  knows  the  earth  and  its  extent 
more  completely  than  the  Roman,  but  it  is  probable 
that  roads  and  methods  of  communication  were  better 
under  Rome,  so  far  as  they  extended  at  all,  than  they 
were  a  hundred  years  ago.  One  civilization  has  suc 
ceeded  another,  new  states  have  risen,  old  ones  flour 
ished  and  decayed ;  the  economic  equilibrium  has 
shifted  and  trade  routes  have  altered,  carrying  pros 
perity  to  one  kingdom  and  ruin  to  another;  the 
fine  arts  have  taken  on  new  forms  and  develop 
ments  among  different  peoples,  have  touched  the 
heights,  blazed  with  splendor,  and  gone  out  only 


HISTORY  117 

to  shine  again  in  some  new  home.  But  still  there 
has  been  no  fundamental  change.  No  empire,  no 
state,  no  civilization  seems  to  have  passed  beyond 
a  certain  point  which  others  had  already  achieved. 
The  scene  shifts,  the  accessories  change,  but  the 
drama  is  the  same.  If  there  had  been  a  steady 
and  scientific  evolution  in  the  prehistoric  period, 
after  the  close  of  that  period  the  evolution  of  the 
most  highly  developed  portions  of  mankind  seems 
to  have  ceased.  The  movements  are  all  sporadic, 
and  never  get  beyond  the  point  which  the  most 
ancient  civilization,  when  it  emerges  from  the  dark 
ness  to  greet  our  eyes,  had  in  all  essential  things  al 
ready  at  hand.  There  is  no  indication  that  man  has 
improved  physically  since  the  day  when  history  began. 
That  he  has  advanced  in  his  moral  attributes  and  con 
ceptions  under  the  influence  of  religion  we  can  hardly 
refuse  to  believe,  if  we  would,  and  the  facts  by  any 
test  furnish  sufficient  proof  that  man's  attitude  to  his 
fellows  is  better  and  more  sympathetic  even  if  we  have 
improved  in  no  other  way.  On  the  other  hand,  al 
though  we  know  more,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
man  is  no  stronger  as  an  intellectual  being  than  he 
was  when  Plato  taught  and  Sophocles  composed  his 
tragedies,  when  Phidias  carved  and  Zeuxis  painted 
and  Pericles  fought  and  governed.  In  the  fine  arts, 
indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  see  that,  except  in  rare  in 
stances,  man  has  ever  attained  a  higher  standard 


118  HISTORY 

in  sculpture  or  architecture,  of  which  alone  we  are 
able  to  judge  with  certainty,  than  he  reached  in  the 
earliest  civilizations. 

It  must  always  be  carefully  borne  in  mind  that 
there  is  a  broad  distinction  between  the  elaboration 
or  perfection  of  an  existing  art  or  a  discovered  force 
and  the  successive  introduction  of  new  forces  which 
lead  on  to  a  different  structure  of  society  and  to  con 
ditions  wholly  different  from  what  has  gone  before. 
The  latter  is  a  true  scientific  evolution,  no  matter  how 
infinitesimal  the  advance  or  how  slow  the  movement 
which  destroys  the  unfit  and  causes  the  survival  of 
those  fittest  to  survive.  The  mere  elaboration  or 
perfection  of  existent  arts  and  forces,  although  they 
may  exhibit  in  a  distinctly  limited  way  the  operations 
of  the  laws  of  evolution,  do  not,  in  the  broad  scientific 
sense,  constitute  a  race  evolution  which  can  supply  us 
with  an  explanation  of  the  development  of  the  race  as 
a  whole,  or  with  a  theory  of  the  universe  or  of  life. 
The  discovery  of  the  means  by  which  fire  could  be 
applied  and  controlled  whenever  it  occurred,  changed 
all  the  conditions  surrounding  the  race  of  men.  It 
was  a  true  evolutionary  step  in  the  development  of 
the  race,  and  the  Promethean  myth  shows  how  the 
tremendous  impression  of  its  effects  survived  through 
ages  the  length  of  which  we  cannot  calculate.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  application  of  animal  power, 
of  the  invention  of  written  symbols,  of  the  organiza- 


HISTORY  119 

tion  of  society,  of  the  art  of  building.  But  the  elab 
oration  and  perfection  of  architecture,  the  refinement 
of  written  characters  into  a  literature,  the  increase  of 
size  in  boats  or  vessels  when  propulsion  by  wind  or 
muscle  had  once  been  discovered  are  not  an  evolu 
tionary  progress  of  the  race  in  any  true  sense,  nor 
do  they  furnish  a  general  law  to  explain  the  entire 
mystery  of  humanity.  The  men  who  first  discovered 
the  process  of  making  bricks,  and  then  the  further 
possibility  of  so  putting  stones  or  bricks  together  as 
to  make  a  permanent  structure  to  shelter  their  gods, 
their  dead  or  their  living,  took  a  long  step  on  the 
path  of  evolution.  But  this  step  once  taken,  the 
men  who  built  the  temples  of  Egypt  or  of  Nippur 
or  the  Lion  Gate  of  Mycenoe,  the  Parthenon  of 
Athens,  the  Colosseum  of  Rome,  or  the  Gothic 
cathedrals  of  France,  were  expressing  the  same  in 
vention  in  different  forms,  but  they  were  not  carry 
ing  forward  at  all  the  evolution  of  the  race.  These 
forms  of  surpassing  strength,  grandeur,  and  beauty 
were  evolved,  no  doubt,  from  the  principles  of  the 
rude  beginnings  which  constituted  the  scientifically 
evolutionary  step ;  but  it  was  the  original  discovery 
which  was  evolutionary  and  not  the  refinement  and 
elaboration  which  followed  and  which  failed  to  change 
the  fundamental  conditions  of  the  race.  It  is  very 
essential  to  keep  clearly  in  mind  the  distinction  be 
tween  the  evolution  of  the  race,  as  a  whole,  through 


120  HISTORY 

a  vital  change  in  environment  and  conditions  necessi 
tating  a  corresponding  adaptation  and  alteration  in 
the  life  of  man  and  in  the  organization  of  society, 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  evolution  of  a  given 
art  or  society,  or  of  an  economic  structure  or  po 
litical  state.  From  the  discovery  of  the  means  by 
which  a  fire  could  be  kindled  and  controlled  to  the 
lamps  of  the  Roman  or  the  Greek  is  a  long  process  of 
evolution  in  the  use  of  fire,  but  does  not  touch  the 
general  evolution  of  the  race.  The  original  discovery 
changed  vitally  the  conditions  which  surrounded  man 
and  forced  him  into  a  new  environment  to  which  he 
was  obliged  slowly  to  adapt  himself,  but  the  improve 
ments  and  extensions  of  the  use  of  fire  had  in  them 
selves  no  such  effect.  The  process  by  which  men 
advanced  from  picture  writing  to  the  plays  of  Eurip 
ides  and  Aristophanes  is  of  great  importance  in  the 
evolution  of  language,  but  it  was  the  invention  of  a 
symbol  for  human  speech  which  altered  the  environ 
ment  of  man  and  not  the  improvements  and  develop 
ments  of  such  symbols.  The  secret  we  would  wring 
from  the  past  is  not  the  law  governing  the  evolution 
of  any  particular  state  or  people,  of  any  especial  art 
or  form  of  social  organization,  but  what  the  forces  are 
which  in  their  union  have  changed  the  environment 
of  humanity  and  which  will  give  us  a  law  that  explains 
the  entire  movement  of  the  race,  solves  the  mystery 
of  existence  and  defines  with  a  single  answer  man's 


HISTORY  121 

relation  to  the  universe.  We  can  readily  understand 
the  difference  between  the  essentially  evolutionary  step 
and  that  which  is  only  an  elaboration  of  a  discovery 
already  made,  if  we  can  imagine  the  world  divested 
of  all  that  has  come  into  it  through  the  agency  of 
steam  and  electricity  and  then  contrast  it  with  that 
which  existed  under  the  ancient  civilizations.  The 
men  who  separated  the  .American  colonies  from  Eng 
land  and  carried  through  the  revolution  in  France, 
events  which  together  changed  the  entire  political 
system  of  America  and  western  Europe,  possessed 
gunpowder  and  printing,  but  beyond  these  two  things 
they  did  not  differ  essentially  in  their  environment 
from  the  men  of  the  ancient  civilizations.  Like  the 
Egyptian,  the  Assyrian,  the  Greek,  and  the  Roman, 
they  still  depended  upon  the  muscles  of  men  and  ani 
mals  or  on  the  wind,  the  rivers,  or  the  tides  for  power. 
They  propelled  their  boats  by  sails  or  oars,  they  trav 
elled  on  horseback ;  and  in  war  and  peace  their  trans 
port  rested  on  wheels,  which  they  caused  to  revolve 
by  the  force  of  draft  animals  or  of  men.  After  de 
veloping  new  forms  of  architecture  they  had  reverted 
to  the  ancient  models,  and  it  may  be  safely  said  that 
they  never  surpassed  the  work  of  the  builders  of  the 
Parthenon  or  of  the  tombs  and  temples  of  Egypt. 
Modern  engineering  has  yet  to  show  whether  it 
can  rival  the  Pyramids,  or  outdo  the  engineers 
whose  lofty  bridge  over  the  Gard  still  stands  with 


Of    THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 
r+.t  icrM 


122  HISTORY 

its  tiers  of  arches,  after  nineteen  hundred  years, 
absolutely  plumb,  and  along  which 

"  Men  might  march  on  nor  be  pressed 
Twelve  abreast.77 

How  much  of  our  pavement  will  remain  after  two 
thousand  years  ?  There  are  miles  of  Roman  pave 
ment  still  to  be  found  scattered  over  Europe  from 
Italy  to  Scotland.  How  much  better  is  our  system 
of  water  supply  than  that  which  the  great  aqueducts 
striding  across  the  plains  brought  to  Rome  and  to 
her  provincial  towns  ?  Have  we  improved  mate 
rially  upon  the  Cloaca  Maxima  or  the  almost  perfect 
arched  drain  in  the  deepest  excavation  of  Nippur? 
Have  we  carried  architecture  or  painting  or  sculpture 
further  than  it  was  carried  in  Egypt  or  in  Greece? 
We  may  go  over  the  whole  field  and  the  results  will 
be  everywhere  the  same,  and  all  alike  will  point 
to  the  same  conclusion :  that  from  the  earliest  civ 
ilizations  historically  known  to  us  down  to  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century  there  had  been  no  change 
in  environment  and  conditions  sufficient  to  warrant 
the  assertion  of  a  continuous  evolution,  such  as  we 
must  have  if  we  are  to  find  in  it  a  general  law  and 
complete  explanation.  The  stream  of  civilization 
rises  and  falls,  plunges  out  of  sight  in  one  place 
and  reappears  in  another,  but  it  never  cuts  new 
channels  or  reaches  a  higher  plane  or  flows  with  a 


HISTORY  123 

broader  current  than  it  apparently  possessed  at  the 
dawn  of  recorded  history.  -  Evolution  of  the  race 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used  here,  must  go  stead 
ily  forward  without  a  break,  compelled  thereto  by 
successive  radical  changes  in  race  environment.  No 
matter  how  minute  or  how  slow  the  advance,  it 
cannot  stand  still ;  and  variety  alone  or  mere  shift 
ing  of  place  is  not  advance,  although  it  may  be 
movement.  Thus  it  seems,  speaking  broadly,  that 
during  the  historic  period  and  down  to  the  closing 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  there  has  been  no 
true  race  evolution  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word 
or  in  the  manner  in  which  we  may  reasonably  infer 
it  to  have  existed  and  proceeded  down  to  the  time 
of  historical  records.  It  would  seem,  if  this  be  true, 
that  there  are  marked  limitations  upon  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  in  history,  or  at  least,  long  pauses  in 
its  movement  as  there  are  in  science,  and  the  dif 
ficulty  is  one  which  history  itself  must  meet. 

But  there  is  a  still  further  difficulty  if  we  consider 
the  period  just  preceding  the  present  day,  for  there 
we  find  strong  evidence  of  a  resumption  of  the  real 
evolutionary  movement  of  the  race,  if  we  may  assume 
that  such  a  movement  went  on  in  prehistoric  times ; 
and  history  is  in  this  way  confronted  with  the  de 
mand  that  it  should  enunciate  some  law  which  shall 
cover  not  only  the  periods  of  evolution,  but  also  the 
space  filled  with  intense  activity  in  which  no  evo- 


124  HISTORY 

lution  took  place.  This  demand  becomes  apparent 
if  we  examine  closely  the  very  latest  period  in  the 
life  of  humanity,  the  one  through  which  we  have 
been  and  are  at  this  moment  passing.  To  make 
clear  what  this  latest  period  means  it  is  necessary 
briefly  to  summarize  and  restate  the  proposition 
which  has  just  been  laid  down.  We  find  man  at 
the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  with  a  vastly 
extended  knowledge,  with  greatly  advanced  methods 
of  killing  other  animals,  including  himself,  and  with 
highly  improved  machinery  for  transmitting  and  dif 
fusing  his  knowledge  through  the  medium  of  printed 
speech.  Otherwise  he  does  not  differ  in  any  radical 
mariner  from  his  predecessor  on  the  upper  Nile,  in 
the  temples  of  Nippur,  the  streets  of  Bactra,  or  within 
the  walls  of  Tiryns  or  Mycenae.  To  men  in  this 
condition  came  suddenly  two  new  forces,  in  the  prac 
tical  application  of  steam  as  power,  and  of  electricity, 
first  as  a  means  of  transmitting  thought  and  knowl 
edge,  and  then  as  a  form  of  power  also.  .These  new 
forces  have  changed  the  face  of  the  world  and  radi 
cally  altered  human  conditions,  creating  a  wholly 
new  environment,  by  the  quickening  of  transporta 
tion  and  communication,  and  by  bringing  the  whole 
earth  so  easily  within  the  grasp  of  the  dominant 
races  that  it  is  nearly  all  reduced  to  possession  in 
name  and  will  soon  be  so  in  reality.  There  is 
no  need  to  point  out  or  dwell  upon  the  marvels 


HISTORY  125 

which  have  thus  been  wrought  out,  or  the  social 
and  political  revolutions  which  have  been  effected. 
Gunpowder  and  printing  worked  social  and  politi 
cal  revolutions  in  their  time  also.  The  important 
point  for  us  now  is  that  under  the  mastery  of 
these  new  forces,  which  have  produced  a  new  en 
vironment,  another  period  of  regular  and  scientific 
evolution  has  apparently  set  in ;  and  the  new  move 
ment,  which  is  chiefly  economic  and  social,  has  gone 
on  not  only  with  regularity,  but  with  an  accelerated 
momentum  which  is  little  short  of  appalling.  Here, 
under  these  new  forces,  we  are  not  carrying  the 
well-understood  civilization  of  the  past  five  thousand 
or  six  thousand  years  once  more  to  a  pitch  of  splen 
dor,  but  we  are  producing  a  civilization  and  a  social 
system  wholly  different  from  what  has  gone  before. 
«To  speak  more  exactly,  we  are  pushing  forward 
the  civilization  we  have  inherited  from  the  count 
less  centuries  beyond  all  the  former  limits  and  on 
to  heights  or  depths  never  before  touched.  The 
phenomena  of  this  resultant  of  the  new  forces  are 
largely  economic  on  the  surface,  but  they  are  at 
bottom  not  only  economic,  but  social.  We  are  creat 
ures  of  habit,  and  we  still  express  the  new  forces 
in  terms  of  the  only  power  the  race  knew  for  many 
thousands  of  years ;  but  what  we  have  actually  done 
is  to  change  the  world  from  the  horse  to  the  engine, 
from  the  man  to  the  machine.  We  are  rapidly  in- 


126  HISTORY 

creasing  this  force,  estimated  in  horse  power,  until 
it  has  already  gone  well-nigh  beyond  imagination. 
And  still  we  are  increasing  it,  still  concentrating  the 
whole  movement  of  the  world  and  the  daily  life 
of  humanity  on  the  production  of  machine  power, 
heedless  alike  of  the  velocity  at  which  we  are  trav 
elling,  or  of  the  fact  that  a  single  break  at  any  point 
might  mean  ruin  and  desolation  such  as  the  world 
has  never  known.  Armed  with  this  power  we  are 
tearing  out  the  resources  of  the  earth  with  entire 
disregard  of  the  future,  and  heaping  up  wealth  in  a 
profusion  and  in  masses  such  as  the  world  never  be 
fore  imagined  even  in  its  dreams. 

But  the  one  fact  more  important  than  any  other 
is  that  a  process  of  steady  evolution,  owing  to  a 
change  in  the  conditions  surrounding  humanity, 
seems  to  be  again  in  progress.  Can  history  ex 
plain  this  present  time  in  which,  borne  on  by  new 
and  untried  forces,  we  are  passing  beyond  any 
civilization  hitherto  known,  or  predict  the  future 
which  this  present  portends?  Can  history,  with 
the  assistance  of  archaeology,  anthropology,  geol 
ogy  and  the  rest,  do  this,  and  by  researches  in 
the  prehistoric  times,  when  there  must  have  been 
evolution,  owing  to  radical  discoveries  and  changes, 
and  by  the  local  and  limited  evolution  in  specific 
cases  in  modern  times,  tell  us  the  manner  in  which 
this  new  evolutionary  power  is  going  to  work  ?  Are 


HISTORY  127 

we  to  infer  that,  because  the  movement  of  our  own 
time  appears  to  rest  upon  the  conservation,  con 
centration,  and  control  of  energy,  and  upon  the 
development  of  natural  forces  to  that  end,  there 
fore  the  movement  of  prehistoric  times  must  have 
had  the  same  evolutionary  process  at  work,  and 
that  here  we  are  to  find  at  last  the  clew  to  the 
development  of  the  race?  Can  history  bring  all 
the  periods  within  the  operation  of  one  har 
monious  law  and  the  scope  of  a  single  explana 
tion  ?  The  purely  mechanical  theory  of  the  universe 
seems  to  have  broken  down  under  science.  It  has 
also  failed  apparently  to  explain  finally  and  com 
pletely  the  history  of  man.  Must  history,  like 
science,  return  upon  her  steps  and  seek  for  some 
new  governing  law  which  shall  succeed  where  dogma 
was  defeated,  and  where  evolution  fell  short  of  the 
final  goal  ?  A  new  period,  bringing  with  it  forces  and 
conditions  hitherto  unknown,  confronts  modern  his 
tory.  Unless  she  can  solve  the  problem  it  presents, 
unless  she  can  bring  forth  a  theory  of  the  universe 
and  of  life  which  shall  take  up  the  past  and  from 
it  read  the  riddle  of  the  present  and  draw  aside  the 
veil  of  the  future,  then  history  in  its  highest  sense 
has  failed.  To  the  men  of  the  twentieth  century 
comes  the  opportunity  to  make  the  effort  which  shall 
convert  failure  to  success,  if  success  be  possible. 


SAMUEL   ADAMS1 

THE  British  colonies  on  the  Atlantic  coast  of  North 
America  were  very  remote  from  the  great  centres  of 
civilization  and  but  little  known  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen  fought  grimly 
in  the  American  forests,  and  the  war  offices  of  their 
respective  countries  knew  of  it,  and  fitted  out  expedi 
tions  and  sent  assistance  to  their  fellow-countrymen 
in  the  distant  West.  When  treaties  were  made, 
diplomatists  wrangled  over  mountains  and  marked 
lines  upon  alleged  maps  of  regions  they  had  never 
seen.  In  time  of  peace  sundry  official  persons  were 
conscious  that  reports  of  provincial  governors  or  other 
crown  officers  were  gathering  dust  on  the  shelves  of 
the  colonial  office  or  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  a 
group  of  merchants  in  London  were  well  and  profit 
ably  aware  that  there  was  a  sturdy  and  increasing 
people  beyond  the  Atlantic  who  bought  their  goods. 
But  this  was  all.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is 
hardly  a  corner  of  the  world  to-day  so  little  known 

1  Through  the  kindness  of  the  W.  A.  Wilde  Co.  of  Boston,  I  am 
permitted  to  reprint  here  this  essay  upon  Samuel  Adams  which  origi 
nally  appeared  in  "  The  Stepping  Stones  of  American  History  "  published 
by  them. 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  129 

to  the  civilized  world  as  the  great  American  colonies 
of  England  were  to  Englishmen  in  the  days  of  the 
First  and  Second  Georges,  and  the  American  people 
were  even  less  known  than  their  country.  Out  of 
that  vigorous  population,  prosperous,  intelligent,  full 
of  life  and  energy,  only  two  names  at  that  period 
reached  the  ears  of  England  and  of  Europe  with  any 
sense  of  reality  or  any  actual  meaning.  Wherever 
the  doctrines  of  Calvin  were  cherished,  the  name  of 
Jonathan  Edwards  was  revered.  Wherever  the  spirit 
of  invention  or  of  scientific  research  was  stirring,  - 
and  it  was  a  very  vivid  spirit  just  then,  already  open 
ing  the  way  for  the  great  century  which  lay  beyond, 
—  the  name  of  Franklin  was  known  and  admired  as 
that  of  one  of  the  memorable  men  of  the  time. 
Those  who  dealt  with  public  affairs  knew  also  that 
this  pioneer  in  meteorology,  this  discoverer  in  the 
untrodden  field  of  electricity,  this  ingenious  inventor 
of  practical  things,  was  also  a  man  of  the  world,  an 
economist,  a  diplomatist,  and  a  master  of  knowledge 
in  regard  to  America  and  her  colonies,  whom  English 
statesmen  consulted  with  confidence  and  were  glad  to 
number  among  their  friends.  But  there  the  list 
of  known  Americans  stopped,  and  all  beyond  was 
darkness. 

As  the  century  grew  to  its  last  quarter,  however, 
certain  American  colonies  and  towns  began  to  emerge 
from  the  haze  which  covered  the  distant  continent, 


130  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

and  to  assume  large  and  quite  definite  outlines  as 
they  acquired  a  somewhat  painful  familiarity  in  the 
minds  of  men.  It  now  appeared  that  this  distant 
and  forgotten  people  were  very  real,  after  all.  It 
became  dimly  visible  that  they  were  not  all  Indians 
or  negroes  or  half-breeds  or  the  descendants  of  con 
victs  and  redemptioners,  but  for  the  most  part,  well 
educated,  hard-headed  men,  extremely  well  versed  in 
English  history,  of  sound  English,  Scotch-Irish,  and 
Huguenot  stocks,  acute  lawyers  and  politicians,  with 
very  fixed  ideas  as  to  their  own  natural  and  constitu 
tional  rights.  *The  first  province  to  come  out  clearly 
before  the  vision  of  England  and  of  western  Europe 
was  the  old  Puritan  colony  of  Massachusetts,  and  the 
first  town  to  impress  itself  upon  their  minds  was 
Boston,  which  seemed  to  lead  and  guide  the  province.) 
Whatever  questions  the  generous  emulation  of  later 
days  may  have  raised  as  to  the  respective  share  of  the 
original  States  in  the  Revolution,  there  was  no  con 
temporary  doubt  as  to  which  colony  began  and  pushed 
steadily  forward  the  revolutionary  moment.  The 
statesmen  and  writers,  the  army  of  pamphleteers,  the 
editors  of  newspapers,  and  the  historians  of  England 
and  France,  all  alike  proclaimed  Massachusetts  as  the 
head  and  front  of  the  offending,  and  Boston  as  the 
head  and  front  of  Massachusetts.  "  This  province 
began  it, — I  might  say  this  town,"  wrote  General 
Gage,  in  bitterness  of  soul ;  and  when  George  Rogers 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  131 

Clarke  was  conquering  the  West  for  the  United  States 
he  found  the  British  calling  upon  the  French  and  the 
Indians  to  come  out  and  "  fight  Boston.''  So  long 
does  an  old  tradition  live  that  to  this  day  the  Indians 
in  the  northwest  of  the  continent  still  describe  the 
people  of  the  United  States  as  "  Boston  men,"  and 
the  Canadians  as  "  King  George  men."  Thus  the 
popular  imagination,  ever  seeking  for  the  simple  and 
concrete,  depicted  the  two  antagonists  in  the  great 
conflict  then  breaking  upon  the  world  as  the  town  of 
Boston  and  King  George  of  England. 

So  it  came  about  that  the  events  which  for  a  few 
years  made  the  little  provincial  capital  the  best  known 
town  in  his  Majesty's  wide  dominions  added  two 
names  to  the  meagre  list  of  Americans  whose  fame 
had  crossed  the  Atlantic  and  whose  deeds  had  given 
them  meaning  and  reality.  Many  men  took  their 
lives  in  their  hands  when  they  signed  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  but  Samuel  Adams  and  John  Han 
cock  could  not  by  any  act  or  by  any  signature  have 
made  their  own  condition  worse.  They  had  been 
proscribed  for  years ;  they  had  been  excepted  by 
name  from  Gage's  amnesty ;  and  one  of  the  objects 
of  the  somewhat  famous  march  to  Concord  had  been 
to  seize  their  persons.  For  their  special  behoof  a 
statute  of  Henry  VIII  had  been  drawn  from  its 
tomb  ;  on  their  necks  had  rested  the  gleam  of  the 
axe,  and  across  their  pathway  had  fallen  the  shadow 


132  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

of  the  gallows.  Whatever  else  others  might  say, 
they  at  least  could  not  complain  that  they  were 
ignored  or  neglected  by  England  and  her  rulers. 

John  Hancock  found  himself  in  this  distinguished 
position,  which  had  led  him  to  the  presidency  of  the 
Congress  and  to  the  first  signature  on  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  because  it  had  suited  his  companion 
in  proscription  to  make  him  his  associate,  and  to  use 
him  for  certain  important  purposes.  But  Samuel 
Adams  was  proscribed  and  famous  solely  by  his  own 
acts  and  deeds.  No  one  but  himself  had  raised  him 
to  eminence.  English  ministers  had  sought  for  evi 
dence  to  warrant  his  arrest  for  treason,  they  had 
tried  to  cajole  him,  they  had  laid  wealth  and  pensions 
and  places  at  his  feet,  they  had  failed  to  buy  or  intim 
idate,  and  finally  they  had  proscribed  him.  They 
had  named  him  "  the  arch  rebel,"  "  the  chief  incen 
diary,"  "  the  instar  omnium"  and  they  were  troubled 
by  no  doubts  when  they  did  so.  Men  constantly  err 
in  their  friends,  but  with  the  curious  animal  instinct 
which  they  have  brought  with  them  across  uncounted 
centuries  they  are,  as  a  rule,  fairly  correct  in  recog 
nizing  their  most  dangerous  enemies.  England  re 
garded  Samuel  Adams  as  the  beginner,  leader,  and 
organizer  of  the  revolutionary  movement  which  cul 
minated  in  war  and  independence,  and  the  Americans 
of  that  day  agreed  with  her.  It  is  a  high  position  to 
assign  to  any  man,  for  the  American  Revolution, 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  133 

momentous  at  the  time,  grows  ever  more  mo 
mentous  and  more  worthy  of  serious  thought  as 
the  United  States,  which  came  from  it,  waxes 
more  powerful,  and,  standing  in  the  forefront  of 
nations,  looms  larger  and  larger  upon  the  vision  of 
mankind. 

Yet  Samuel  Adams  really  made  for  himself  and 
actually  filled  the  place  which  his  own  contempo 
raries  and  the  voice  of  history,  authorities  quite  prone 
to  differ,  alike  give  him.  His  career  is  curiously 
simple,  for  his  whole  life  was  one  of  public  service. 
Pleasure,  professional  success,  money,  business,  private 
tastes,  society,  all  these  and  many  other  things  which 
usually  shoot  their  parti-colored  threads  across  the 
web  of  even  those  lives  most  singly  devoted  to  state 
craft  or  war,  to  art  or  letters  or  science,  find  no  place 
and  shine  out  nowhere  in  the  career  of  Samuel 
Adams.  He  came  from  the  Braintree  stock,  founded 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Puritan  emigration  by  the 
sturdy  farmer  Henry  Adams,  who  had  two  grand 
sons,  Joseph  and  John.  Joseph  stayed  by  the  ances 
tral  farm  in  Braintree,  and  became  the  grandfather 
of  John  Adams  the  first  President,  and  the  ancestor 
of  his  line  of  distinguished  descendants.  John,  the 
brother  of  Joseph,  left  Braintree,  took  to  the  sea, 
settled  in  Boston,  became  the  father  of  Samuel 
Adams  the  elder,  who  in  due  time  married  and  had 
in  his  turn  a  son,  Samuel  Adams  the  younger,  the 


134  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

second  cousin  of  John,  "  the  man  of  the  Revolution/' 
as  Jefferson  called  him. 

We  may  well  pause  here  for  a  moment  to  consider 
Samuel  Adams  the  elder,  because  he  was  a  man  of  dis 
tinction,  and  his  success  and  his  misfortunes,  as  well 
as  his  mind  and  character,  had  much  influence  upon 
his  famous  son.  He  had  inherited  a  considerable 
property  and  increased  it.  He  had  a  goodly  house 
and  garden,  for  the  fashion  of  the  day  required  a  gar 
den  as  an  appendage  of  houses  of  the  better  sort.  He 
was  a  leader  in  church  and  town  affairs,  went  to  the 
"  Great  and  General  Court "  and  became  a  leader 
there,  heading  the  opposition  to  the  royal  governor. 
He  was  a  politician  and  a  manager  in  the  more  pop 
ular  sense,  organizing  the  men  of  the  shipyards  into 
what  was  known  as  the  "  Caulkers'  Club,"  which  is 
believed  to  have  given  a  word  to  the  language  as 
well  as  a  system  to  politics.  He  had  also  unluckily 
a  speculative  turn.  As  years  passed  he  was  less  suc 
cessful  in  business,  became  involved  in  the  "  Land 
Bank,"  a  scheme  for  increasing  the  currency,  utterly 
unsound  in  principle,  and  going  to  wreck  accordingly ; 
so  that  when  he  came  to  die  he  transmitted  a  sadly 
impaired  property  to  his  children. 

Thus  we  can  understand  the  atmosphere  in  which 
the  younger  Samuel  grew  up.  The  strong  impres 
sions  of  boyhood,  youth,  and  early  manhood  were  of 
public  service,  active  political  organization,  extending 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  135 

to  the  most  popular  forms,  and  of  steady  and  ingenious 
opposition  to  the  successive  governors,  who  repre 
sented  the  royal  authority.  Add  to  this  that  he  saw 
his  father's  property  shattered  by  the  Land  Bank,  and 
instead  of  blaming  the  inherent  unsoundness  of  the 
scheme,  his  hostility,  as  is  often  the  case,  turned 
against  the  government,  and  with  personal  bitterness 
against  Thomas  Hutchinson,  the  chief  opponent  of 
the  Bank,  who  afterwards  rescued  the  province  from 
the  miseries  of  a  depreciated  and  irredeemable  paper 
currency. 

That  all  these  impressions  drawn  from  his  father's 
actions  and  career  should  have  sunk  deep  into  his 
mind  was  quite  natural,  and  they  were  enhanced  by 
the  fact  that  that  father  was  a  "  wise  and  good  man/' 
a  victim  of  unmerited  reverses,  and  to  his  son  all  that 
was  most  kind  and  affectionate.  Born  in  1722,  a 
child  in  a  happy  united  household,  Samuel  Adams's 
father  gave  him  every  opportunity  and  advantage 
which  the  town  and  province  afforded,  or  which  gen 
erosity  could  suggest.  He  went  to  the  best  public 
school.  Thence  he  was  sent  to  Harvard  College  and 
received  a  sound  classical  training,  and  there  at  Cam 
bridge,  in  1743,  whither  he  had  returned  to  take  his 
master's  degree,  he  delivered  a  thesis  before  the  as 
sembled  dignitaries  of  the  province,  entitled  "  Whether 
it  be  lawful  to  resist  the  Supreme  Magistrate,  if  the 
Commonwealth  cannot  otherwise  be  preserved."  It 


136  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

would  be  hard  to  find  another  case  in  which  a  college 
boy  took  as  his  theme  a  subject  which  was  to  be  the 
text  of  his  life-work,  for  the  defence  of  his  affirma 
tive  answer  made  that  day  at  Cambridge  as  an 
academic  exercise  was  to  be  carried  on  unrelentingly 
and  without  break  until  the  resistance  he  advocated 
culminated  at  Philadelphia  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence. 

Thus  equipped  in  education  and  opinion  he  went 
forth  in  the  world.  His  father  placed  him  in  the 
counting-house  of  Thomas  Gushing  and  then  gave  him 
a  thousand  pounds  to  start  in  business  for  himself. 
He  had  every  advantage.  He  belonged  to  the  aris 
tocracy  of  his  little  town,  he  still  had  wealth  in 
prospect,  he  had  a  father  distinguished  in  public  life 
and  respected  by  all,  and  a  fair  business  opportunity 
was  laid  open  before  him.  Unluckily  he  cared  for 
none  of  these  things.  Half  of  the  thousand  pounds 
was  lent  to  a  friend  and  never  came  back.  The  other 
half  he  lost  himself.  Then  he  went  into  the  opera 
tion  of  a  brewery  with  his  father.  This  ran  on  until 
his  father's  death  in  1748.  Then  the  brewery  faded 
and  failed,  and  Samuel  Adams  found  himself  with  the 
paternal  house  and  garden  on  Purchase  street,  a  wife 
and  family,  no  money,  and  no  business.  So  he  re 
mained  through  life,  entirely  poor,  absolutely  regard 
less  of  money  as  well  as  indifferent  to  it,  and  living 
always  straitly,  but  decently,  honorably,  and  free  from 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  137 

debt,  on  the  petty  stipend  of  his  public  employments. 
But  although  he  had  lost  the  worldly  things  for  which 
he  did  not  care,  he  had  what  he  valued  most,  —  his 
freedom,  the  untrammelled  way  to  gratify  the  ruling 
passion  of  his  nature  open  before  him,  and  a  steady 
growth  of  the  power  which  he  coveted.  For  in  those 
years  of  financial  decline  he  became  gradually  known 
as  a  strong  and  able  writer  upon  public  questions. 
Men  began  to  turn  to  him  for  advice,  and  he  began  to 
shape  opinions.  He  took  one  office  after  another  in 
the  town,  the  scale  gradually  increasing.  He  found 
himself  at  the  head  of  followers  ever  growing  in  num 
ber,  and  slowly  but  surely  the  mastery  of  the  formi 
dable  instrument  of  the  Boston  town-meeting  came 
into  his  hands.  So  passed  away  sixteen  toilsome,  hard 
working  years,  and  then  he  stepped  forth  into  the 
light  as  a  leader,  never  afterwards  to  lose  his  place. 
His  father  died,  as  has  been  said,  in  1748.  In  the 
succeeding  years,  while  Samuel  Adams  was  struggling 
with  poverty,  and  with  the  evil  legacy  of  Land  Bank 
claims,  and  slowly  winning  his  place  in  the  politics 
and  business  of  the  town,  great  world  events  had 
been  following  each  other  in  rapid  succession.  War 
had  come,  convulsing  Europe  and  America.  Fred 
erick  of  Prussia  had  fought  and  beaten  off  banded 
Europe,  and  Pitt  had  raised  England  to  the  zenith  of 
glory,  one  victory  chasing  close  after  another.  In  all 
this  glory  and  in  many  of  these  victories,  the  Ameri- 


138  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

can  colonies  had  largely  shared,  and  none  had  given 
more  in  men  and  money  than  Massachusetts.  The 
colonists  were  filled  with  pride  in  the  empire  and 
with  admiration  for  the  "  great  commoner."  In  1759 
Quebec  fell,  and  close  behind  this  crowning  victory, 
which  gave  North  America  to  the  English-speaking 
people,  came  the  first  ministerial  attempt,  born  of 
ignorance  and  restlessness,  to  put  colonial  affairs  in 
order.  England  thought  it  wise  to  undertake  to  en 
force  the  Navigation  Acts  in  despite  of  which  Amer 
ican  merchants  had  been  wont  to  sail  ships  and  carry 
on  a  lucrative  and  illegal  trade.  Writs  were  given 
out  authorizing  the  customs  officers  to  search  houses 
for  smuggled  goods ;  and  James  Otis  thundered 
against  these  writs  of  assistance,  on  the  theme  that 
an  Englishman's  house  is  his  castle,  in  a  speech 
which  still  echoes  in  history,  and  with  which  John 
Adams  declared  that  the  child  Independence  was 
born.  It  was  a  great  speech.  It  was  the  first  cry 
of  warning  to  England,  where  it  fell  on  deaf  ears. 
It  was  the  first  note  of  resistance,  but  there  was 
nothing  of  independence  in  it,  and  no  one  was  farther 
from  that  conception  than  James  Otis.  That  far- 
reaching  thought  was  to  come  from  a  stronger  and 
more  determined  man  than  the  brilliant  orator,  from 
one  who  was  even  then  fast  working  himself  out 
from  obscurity  in  the  politics  of  Boston,  although  he 
had  no  gift  of  eloquence  to  aid  him. 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  139 

Meantime  events  moved.  George  III  came  to 
the  throne.  Peace  was  to  be  made.  Pitt  fell  from 
power,  all  largeness  of  view  went  with  him,  and 
George  Grenville,  worthy,  well-informed  busybody, 
decided  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  raise  a 
revenue  from  America.  So  the  Stamp  Act  was 
passed,  and  the  American  colonies  burst  into  a 
flame  of  bitter  opposition.  A  Congress  was  called, 
and  mischief  was  afoot.  The  moment  also  had 
come  at  last  for  Samuel  Adams;  and  in  1764  he 
drafted  certain  instructions,  very  famous  in  their 
day,  from  the  town  of  Boston  to  her  representa 
tives  in  the  Legislature,  setting  forth  the  necessity 
and  duty  of  resistance  to  taxation,  and  also  con 
taining  what  was  far  more  fatal  to  England,  —  an 
appeal  for  a  union  of  all  the  colonies  in  what  was 
necessarily  a  common  cause.  It  is  well  to  note 
this  appeal  for  union,  because  it  appears  in  this, 
the  first  of  Samuel  Adams's  great  state  papers, 
and  is  repeated  unceasingly  by  him  from  that  day 
forward.  Its  importance  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
political  union  of  the  colonies  meant  and  could 
mean  nothing  but  a  mortal  blow  to  English  author 
ity.  Everything  else  was  trivial  compared  to  that 
purpose  of  union,  and  Adams  clung  to  it  with  a 
grim  tenacity  which  nothing  could  move.  In  the 
following  year,  1765,  he  is  reported  to  have  ad 
mitted  to  his  friends  in  private  that  he  wished  for 


140  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

independence.  Whether  that  date  is  exact  or  not. 
it  is  clear  that  he  aimed  at  such  a  consumma 
tion  long  before  any  one  else  dreamed  of  it,  and 
three  years  later  he  openly  declared  it.  To  that 
end  he  labored,  to  that  ultimate  object  all  his  argu 
ments  tended.  He  stood  alone  in  1765.  He  still 
stood  nearly  alone  ten  years  later,  and  was  feared 
on  account  of  what  were  thought  to  be  his  desperate 
opinions.  But  through  all  he  never  swerved,  and 
he  passed  along  his  stormy  course  with  the  strength 
of  the  man  who  knows  exactly  what  he  wants  and 
precisely  how  he  means  to  get  it.  To  follow  here  in 
anything  except  one  line  that  remarkable  career, 
every  detail  of  which  had  a  meaning  and  an  influ 
ence  upon  the  current  of  events,  is  impossible.  All 
that  can  be  done  is  to  enumerate  the  most  important 
incidents  and  point  out  the  great  landmarks  of  the 
march  of  resistance  to  England,  which  culminated  at 
last  in  war  and  independence. 

In  1765  Samuel  Adams  was  chosen  to  the  Legis 
lature.  There  he  remained  until  a  Continental  Con 
gress  sprang  into  existence,  and  he  became  at  once 
not  only  a  leader,  but  the  master  spirit.  He  already 
led  and  controlled  the  town-meeting  of  Boston. 
Now  he  led  all  the  towns  of  the  province ;  and 
when  the  Legislature  slackened  or  seemed  to  lose 
heart,  he  used  the  Boston  town-meeting  to  spur  it 
on.  He  signalized  his  entry  into  the  Legislature  by 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  141 

carrying  a  series  of  resolutions  which  made  much 
stir,  and  in  which  he  set  forth  the  principles  of 
resistance  to  taxation  without  representation,  and 
boldly  questioned  the  power  of  Parliament.  When 
the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  had  caused  a  fervent 
outburst  of  loyalty,  it  was  Samuel  Adams  who  kept 
the  spirit  of  opposition  alive  by  his  incessant  writing 
in  the  newspapers,  pointing  out  that,  though  the  ob 
noxious  act  had  gone,  the  declaration  of  the  right 
of  Parliament  to  tax  the  colonies  remained.  He 
never  lost  heart  or  quieted  down  when  public  feel 
ing  ebbed,  and  it  is  but  fair  to  say  that  England 
always  came  to  his  aid.  At  this  moment  it  was  the 
act  to  tax  red  and  white  lead,  glass,  paper,  painters' 
colors,  and  tea.  Adams  met  this  fresh  attempt  with 
his  scheme  of  non-importation  agreements,  and  in 
1768  with  a  far  more  dangerous  weapon,  —  a  circu- 
]ar  letter  from  the  Massachusetts  House  to  the  other 
colonies,  asking  them  to  unite  in  resistance  to  this 
new  taxation. 

Side  by  side  with  these  large  schemes,  covering 
the  policy  of  the  continent,  went  on  an  unceasing 
controversy  with  the  royal  governors;  first  with 
Bernard,  then  with  Hutchinson,  —  the  former  an 
irascible,  rather  dull  Englishman,  the  latter  a  very 
able  and  keen  New  Englander,  to  whom  opposition 
was  sharpened  by  the  life-long  personal  enmity  of 
the  man  who  had  suffered  by  the  downfall  of  the 


142  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

Land  Bank.  This  contest  with  the  governors  was 
never  allowed  to  flag.  Everything  they  desired  was 
withheld,  every  proposition  they  advanced  was  com 
bated.  Letters  emanating  from  Samuel  Adams  went 
out  constantly  to  the  colonial  agents  in  London,  and 
to  public  men  in  England,  setting  forth  the  case  of 
the  colonies,  assailing  the  governors  and  demanding 
their  recall.  This  contest  maintained  the  popular 
interest  and  ministered  to  the  popular  excitement, 
and  there  was  always  something  on  hand  to  serve 
the  purpose  of  the  man  who  waged  it. 

In  1766  it  was  the  Billeting  Act;  in  1768  came 
the  circular  letter  from  the  House  to  the  other  colo 
nies,  and  the  governor,  acting  under  instructions, 
demanded  it  should  be  rescinded,  —  which  the  House 
debated  at  length,  and  then  would  not  comply.  Next 
arrived  the  British  regiments,  and  a  fierce  discussion 
opened  in  regard  to  their  presence  in  the  town.  This 
controversy  had  a  bloody  ending.  The  people  bitterly 
resented  the  presence  of  the  soldiers,  and  the  leaders, 
headed  by  Adams,  stimulated  the  popular  hostility. 
Affrays  were  frequent ;  and  at  last,  on  the  evening 
of  March  5,  1770,  the  inevitable  happened.  Some 
men  and  boys  baited  the  soldiers,  and  the  soldiers 
fired  on  the  crowd.  The  young  moon  shining  clear 
that  night  looked  down  upon  the  light  snow  in  King 
Street,  stained  red  now  with  the  first  blood  of  the 
Revolution.  The  ominous  cry  of  "  Town-born,  turn 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  143 

out !  "  rang  through  the  streets.  The  troops  were 
brave  and  disciplined.  They  would  have  died  hard, 
but  numbers  would  have  overwhelmed  them.  Hutch- 
inson  managed  to  restore  quiet  for  the  night.  The 
next  day  there  was  a  town-meeting,  presently  grown 
so  large  that  it  adjourned  to  the  Old  South  Church. 
Guided  by  Samuel  Adams,  they  demanded  the  with 
drawal  of  the  troops  from  the  town.  Hutchinson 
refused  ;  he  had  no  authority.  Then  he  would  send 
away  one  regiment,  but  not  both.  All  this  was  voted 
unsatisfactory  by  the  meeting,  now  swelled  by  the 
country  people  who  were  pouring  into  Boston  and 
crowding  the  streets.  So  the  day  wore  away,  and 
darkness  fell.  For  the  last  time  the  committee  went 
to  the  Council  Chamber,  with  the  cry  of  the  town- 
meeting — Adams's  own  watchword,  "Both  regiments 
or  none !  "  —  sounding  behind  them.  Then  Adams, 
plain  of  dress,  simple  in  manner,  stern  and  decisive 
in  words,  spoke  in  the  Council  Chamber  to  the  repre 
sentatives  of  royal  authority.  It  was  the  most  dra 
matic,  the  greatest  moment,  perhaps,  of  his  life.  He 
was  only  the  man  of  the  "town-meeting;"  and  facing 
him  were  the  royal  governor,  the  judges  in  their 
robes,  the  council,  and  the  colonels  in  their  scarlet 
uniforms.  But  he  was  able  to  unchain  the  demo 
cratic  force  destined  soon  to  enter  on  a  career  which 
would  shape  the  fate  of  two  continents,  and  those 
whom  he  addressed  dimly  felt  the  presence  of  some- 


144  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

thing  new  and  strange.  They  hesitated  and  resisted. 
First  the  council  gave  way,  then  the  colonels,  and 
at  last  Hutchinson.  The  regiments  were  withdrawn, 
and  passed  out  of  Boston  with  the  name  of  "  Sam 
Adams  "  attached  to  them. 

So  the  fire  blazed  up  for  a  moment  and  then  sank 
down ;  and  thereupon  ensued  one  of  those  lulls,  one 
of  those  moments  of  weariness  and  dejection  which 
occur  in  all  popular  movements,  and  which  Adams 
dreaded  more  than  anything  else.  He  met  it  in 
the  newspapers  with  his  articles.  He  fought  it  in 
the  House  with  continued  attacks  on  the  removal 
of  the  Legislature  to  Cambridge.  But  the  non 
importation  agreements  were  slackening.  Men  were 
growing  weary.  The  House  began  to  yield,  and 
Hutchinson  was  a  clever  manager.  He  let  them 
go  back  to  Boston,  and  then  Adams,  alive  to  the 
danger,  opened  his  new  plan.  He  turned  to  the 
town-meeting,  and  started  the  scheme  of  committees 
of  correspondence  in  all  the  towns.  The  Tories 
laughed,  and  made  light  of  it;  but  the  towns  re 
sponded.  Boston  adopted  Adams's  declaration  of 
rights,  and  the  other  towns  answered  to  the  call. 
The  plan  was  a  success  after  all,  and  a  new  and  more 
dangerous  weapon  was  now  in  the  hands  of  the  agi 
tator.  Not  the  town  of  Boston  alone,  but  henceforth 
all  the  towns  of  the  province  responded  to  his  touch. 
Kevolution  was  organized.  Nothing  remained  but  to 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  145 

extend  it  to  the  other  provinces,  and  union,  active 
arid  effective,  was  accomplished. 

Again,  too,  the  ministry  and  the  king  came  to  his 
aid.  All  the  obnoxious  duties  had  been  repealed  ex 
cept  that  on  tea,  and  the  East  India  Company,  whose 
tea  was  piling  up  in  their  warehouses,  thanks  to  the 
non-importation  agreement,  were  now  relieved  of  the 
export  duties,  and  thus  urged  to  send  tea  to  the  colo 
nies.  Meantime,  the  contest  in  the  colony  had  been 
steadily  advancing.  The  payment  of  the  salaries  by 
governor  and  judges  had  been  decreed  in  England, 
and  the  House,  under  the  lead  of  Adams,  denounced 
it  as  a  perilous  assault  upon  the  liberties  of  the  peo 
ple,  as,  indeed,  it  was.  Then  Hutchinson,  in  a  very 
able  message,  asserted  the  power  of  Parliament  to 
legislate  in  all  ways  for  the  colonies;  and  all  the 
Tories,  and,  in  fact,  not  a  few  of  the  patriots,  felt  that 
the  argument  was  unanswerable.  But  it  was  really 
just  what  Adams  wanted.  Above  all  things,  Adams 
desired  to  discuss  the  power  and  authority  of  Par 
liament,  and  now  the  governor  had  given  him  the 
chance  to  do  it  in  a  manner  to  attract  the  utmost 
possible  attention.  The  reply  of  the  House,  drafted 
by  Adams  and  carefully  considered  by  the  members, 
proved  to  be  abler,  keener,  and  more  conclusive  than 
the  learned  and  ingenious  argument  of  the  governor. 
In  the  debate  thus  opened  the  House  scored,  and 

public  opinion  was  strongly  turned  against  the  crown. 

10 


146  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

Adams's  motto  always  was,  throughout  the  struggle, 
"  Put  your  enemy  in  the  wrong  "  ;  and  in  the  case  of 
such  an  enemy  as  he  was  contending  with,  this  was 
not  difficult.  But  it  must  have  seemed  to  him,  in 
1773,  as  if  his  enemy  was  fairly  delivered  into  his 
hands.  Not  only  had  Hutchinson  given  him  oppor 
tunity  to  discuss  the  power  of  Parliament,  but  Vir 
ginia,  in  March,  passed  resolutions  for  Intercolonial 
Committees  of  Correspondence.  Massachusetts  had 
accepted  the  offer  with  enthusiasm,  and  Adams's  plan 
for  organization  and  union  was  effected.  The  most 
mortal  blow  to  English  rule  had  been  struck,  although 
few  knew  it  at  the  moment ;  and  while  America  was 
thus  engaged,  England  was  passing  the  Tea  Act. 
When  the  news  reached  America,  Adams  replied  by 
starting  the  movement  for  a  Congress  of  all  the 
colonies. 

Events  ever  growing  in  importance  were  now 
treading  close  upon  each  other's  heels.  Presently 
came  news  that  the  tea  ships  had  sailed ;  then  that 
they  were  in  the  harbor.  Boston,  acting  ever  through 
the  town-meeting,  under  the  lead  of  Adams,  would 
not  suffer  the  tea  to  be  landed.  Every  expedient 
was  tried  to  avoid  anything  like  violence,  and  to  get 
the  tea  sent  back  to  England.  But  the  consignees  fal 
tered  and  resisted,  and  when  they  had  been  brought 
to  terms,  the  officers  of  the  customs  and  the  governor 
opposed.  So  the  days  wore  by  until  it  was  within  a 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  147 

few  hours  of  the  time  when,  under  the  law,  the  fate 
ful  cargoes  had  to  be  landed.  The  town-meeting  was 
in  session  at  the  old  South  Church ;  they  were  wait 
ing,  as  the  short  December  day  drew  to  a  close,  the 
result  of  a  last  attempt  to  obtain  a  permit  from  the 
governor  to  let  the  ships  go  to  sea.  At  last  the  mes 
sage  of  final  refusal  came.  It  was  another  dramatic 
moment  in  the  career  of  Samuel  Adams.  Again  he 
was  the  central  figure,  and  again  he  had  everything 
arranged,  and  knew  exactly  what  he  meant  to  do. 
The  refusal  of  the  governor  was  reported,  and  Adams 
arose  and  cried  out,  "  This  meeting  can  do  nothing 
more  to  save  the  country."  As  he  uttered  the  words 
the  Indian  war-whoop  was  heard  outside.  There  was 
a  rush  to  the  wharves,  and  in  a  few  hours  the  harbor 
was  black  with  tea.  It  was  at  last  evident  to  all 
men  that  Massachusetts,  and  that  America,  would 
not  pay  taxes  which  they  had  not  a  part  in  imposing. 
England  responded  quickly  to  the  defiance  con 
veyed  by  the  destruction  of  the  tea.  A  military 
governor  in  the  person  of  Thomas  Gage  replaced 
Hutchinson,  and  brought  more  troops  with  him. 
The  Port  Bill  closed  Boston  Harbor,  reduced  her 
people  to  idleness,  thus  making  her  a  martyr  and  her 
cause  the  cause  of  all  the  colonies,  a  better  bond  of 
union  than  any  Adams  himself  had  devised.  The 
Provincial  charter  was  changed  and  the  popular 
rights  curtailed,  —  another  link  in  the  union  chain. 


148  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

Gage  also  had  orders  to  arrest  Adams  and  Hancock, 
but  even  with  his  army  about  him  he  feared  to  do  it ; 
for  the  menace  of  a  new  danger  and  a  new  force 
was  in  the  air,  and  although  the  governor  did  not 
comprehend  it  he  recoiled  from  it.  Then  Gage  sum 
moned  the  Legislature  to  meet  at  Salem,  and  when 
they  were  assembled,  Adams  amused  the  governor 
and  his  friends  in  the  House  by  talk  of  conciliation, 
while  he  quickly  gathered  an  unyielding  majority  to 
effect  the  masterstroke.  When  the  majority  was  en 
rolled,  when  all  was  ready,  suddenly  and  surely 
Adams  moved.  The  doors  were  locked,  and  even 
while  the  governor's  messenger  with  the  message  of 
prorogation  demanded  admittance  and  beat  upon  the 
panels,  the  House  chose  delegates  to  the  American 
Congress.  Then  the  doors  were  broken  open,  and  the 
last  "  Great  and  General  Court "  to  be  held  under  the 
crown  was  dissolved,  and  passed  out  into  history.  Its 
work  was  done. 

In  September  Samuel  Adams  and  his  cousin  John 
met  with  the  other  delegates  in  Philadelphia.  In  the 
remarkable  body  of  men  who  then  gathered  in  Car 
penter's  hall,  none  except  Franklin  was  so  well  known, 
none  excited  so  much  interest,  as  Samuel  Adams,  and 
none  also  was  so  much  feared  or  regarded  with  so 
much  suspicion.  His  ability,  patriotism  and  courage 
were  recognized  and  admired,  but  he  was  thought  to 
be  a  desperate  man  aiming  at  independence.  His 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  149 

purpose  certainly  was  independence,  and  a  very  clear, 
definite  purpose  it  was,  although  he  stood  alone,  and 
every  one  of  his  associates  shrank  from  the  very 
word.  But  he  was  anything  but  desperate.  Never, 
indeed,  did  he  appear  greater  and  stronger  than  at 
this  trying  moment  when  all  around  him  were  sus 
picion  and  hostility.  Those  who  reckoned  on  a  violent 
incendiary  did  not  understand  that  they  were  face  to 
face  with  one  of  the  most  adroit  managers  of  men 
known  to  history.  Never  so  much  as  at  this  critical 
instant,  with  all  his  hopes  trembling  on  the  verge  of 
fulfilment,  were  the  tact,  the  self-control,  the  perfect 
calmness  of  the  man  so  conspicuous.  Great  as  a 
combatant,  he  was  equally  great  as  a  conciliator.  It 
was  he,  the  rigid  Puritan,  the  hater  of  bishops,  who 
moved  that  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England 
should  be  asked  to  offer  prayer.  The  pre-eminent 
man  in  the  revolutionary  movement,  he  now  sedu 
lously  kept  himself  in  the  background.  He  served 
on  such  committees  as  he  was  appointed  to  diligently, 
as  was  his  wont,  and  took  his  share  in  the  great  state 
papers  which  emanated  from  the  Congress;  but  it 
was  all  done  so  unobtrusively  that  the  most  delicate 
sensibilities  could  not  be  ruffled  nor  the  most  wakeful 
suspicion  aroused.  No  doubt  in  private  conversation 
he  gently  impressed  his  views  upon  others.  It  is 
certain  that  his  plans  carried  out  by  others  at  home 
brought  pressure  upon  the  Congress  in  the  shape  of 


150  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

"  Suffolk  resolves,"  county  congresses,  and  then  a 
Provincial  Congress,  all  pointing  out  to  the  other  colo 
nies  the  way  to  independent  government.  But  in 
Philadelphia  Samuel  Adams  sank  into  the  back 
ground,  leaving  leadership  to  others  and  trusting  to 
events  and  to  outside  influences  which  he  himself,  in 
part,  at  least,  set  in  motion,  to  carry  them  along 
what  seemed  to  him  both  the  inevitable  and  the 
righteous  path. 

From  Philadelphia  Adams  returned  to  Massachu 
setts  to  join  in  the  work  of  organizing  the  Provincial 
Congress,  carrying  on  the  work  of  the  Committees 
of  Correspondence,  keeping  the  Boston  town-meeting, 
which  Gage  had  prohibited,  alive  by  adjournments,  so 
that  a  new  one  need  never  be  called,  and  in  all  ways 
preparing  for  the  war  which  he  knew  to  be  near. 
Events  indeed  moved  now  with  great  rapidity.  Win 
ter  wore  away,  and  when  the  spring  came,  Gage 
determined  at  last  to  arrest  the  two  men  whom  he 
had  proscribed.  Warned  in  ample  time  Hancock  and 
Adams  left  Boston  for  Lexington,  and  thither  Gage 
sent  troops  to  seize  them  on  the  way  to  destroy  the 
munitions  of  war  at  Concord.  There  in  the  fading 
darkness  came  Revere  bearing  news  of  the  coming  of 
the  troops.  Presently  they  saw  the  British  infantry 
march  up  in  ordered  ranks  ;  they  heard  Pitcairn's 
order ;  they  heard  the  shots  ring  out ;  and  then  they 
slipped  away  from  the  house  and  drove  rapidly  off  to 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  151 

Woburn.  As  they  passed  along  the  quiet  country 
road,  the  beautiful  light  of  the  April  dawn  flushing 
the  skies  above  their  heads,  the  Puritan  reserve  for 
one  moment  gave  way  to  an  overwhelming  emotion, 
and  Adams  looking  upward,  like  Cromwell  at  Dunbar, 
cried  out,  "  What  a  glorious  morning  is  this  !  " 

And  so  they  passed  on  together  to  Philadelphia,  re 
ceived  with  acclaim  along  the  road,  for  the  news  of 
Lexington  and  Concord  had  gone  before  them.  The 
Revolution  had  begun,  but  there  were  still  some 
months  of  conflict  before  the  new  Congress.  There 
was  also  abundance  of  bitter  opposition  to  Adams, 
but  now  events,  as  he  had  foreseen,  were  working 
irresistibly  on  his  side.  Paine's  famous  pamphlet 
"  Common  Sense "  had  wrought  a  great  change  in 
opinion  and  had  crystallized  the  popular  will.  Con 
gress  was  compelled  to  authorize  the  States  to  set  up 
governments  of  their  own.  They  were  obliged  to 
adopt  the  army  before  Boston  and  put  Washington  at 
the  head  of  it.  Virginia  was  now  working  side  by 
side  with  Massachusetts,  and  the  two  great  colonies 
were  drawing  the  others  with  them.  John  Hancock, 
the  proscribed,  was  made  president  of  the  Congress. 
No  longer  was  it  necessary  for  Samuel  Adams  to  hold 
his  hand  or  keep  in  the  background.  Now,  with  all 
his  power  of  will,  he  was  able  to  drive  forward  to  the 
goal  at  which  his  whole  life  had  aimed.  In  June, 
Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Virginia,  the  close  friend  of 


152  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

Adams,  introduced  his  famous  resolution  declaring 
for  independence.  There  was  a  committee  appointed, 
there  was  the  pause  and  the  deliberation  for  nearly  a 
month  so  characteristic  of  the  race,  and  then  Jeffer 
son  reported  the  Declaration,  and  it  was  adopted, 
signed,  and  given  to  the  world. 

This  was  the  great  moment  of  Samuel  Adams's 
life.  For  years  he  alone  had  foreseen  this  outcome 
and  labored  for  it.  For  this  he  had  faced  proscrip 
tion,  suspicion,  and  bitter  hostility.  To  few  men  is 
it  given  to  win  so  great  a  victory,  to  behold  so  com 
plete  a  triumph  of  all  they  hold  most  dear.  When 
Samuel  Adams  set  his  name  to  the  Declaration  his 
great  work  on  the  stage  of  history  was  done.  Not 
that  his  labors  for  his  country  and  his  beloved  State 
ended  then.  On  the  contrary,  for  twenty-one  years 
more  he  worked  as  hard,  as  unceasingly,  as  he  had 
ever  worked,  and  that  meant  all  the  time,  and  in  a 
measure  which  few  men  had  ever  equalled. 

He  remained  in  Congress  nearly  to  the  end  of  the 
war,  stayed  there  long  after  it  had  declined  in  char 
acter  and  importance,  and  after  the  great  men  with 
whom  he  had  begun  had  been  almost  wholly  re 
placed  by  others  sadly  their  inferiors  in  distinction 
and  ability.  He  shirked  no  duty,  he  served  on  great 
committees,  he  labored  in  every  way  to  sustain  the 
war  and  the  army.  His  zeal,  intelligence,  and 
energy  slackened  no  jot  in  all  those  toilsome  years 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  153 

or  in  the  darkest  hours.  Never  for  a  moment  did 
his  faith  and  courage  fail.  In  the  intervals  at  home 
he  labored  just  as  hard  at  the  work  in  Massachu 
setts.  He  served  as  Secretary  of  State,  the  execu 
tive  officer  of  the  Executive  Council,  and  guided  the 
Provincial  Congress,  spurring  the  State  on  to  give 
that  full  share  of  men  and  money  to  the  common 
cause  which  stands  as  one  of  the  glories  of  the  old 
Commonwealth.  He  had  a  leading  part  in  preparing 
the  Articles  of  Confederation  and  in  framing  the  con 
stitution  of  1780  for  Massachusetts,  under  which  the 
State  is  still  governed.  When  the  state  government 
was  formed,  he  became  a  member  of  the  state  senate, 
then  for  a  series  of  years  its  presiding  officer,  then 
lieutenant-governor,  and  finally,  after  the  death  of 
Hancock,  he  was  for  three  years  governor,  the  office 
with  which  beyond  all  others  he  would  have  pre 
ferred  to  crown  his  career.  In  1797  he  retired  from 
public  life,  and  six  years  later,  just  after  he  had 
passed  his  eighty-first  birthday,  he  died  honored  and 
mourned  by  the  people  of  Massachusetts  whom  he 
had  loved  so  well  and  served  so  long. 

His  career  after  1776  was  one  filled  with  unremit 
ting  labor  crowned  with  high  distinction,  furnishing  in 
itself  a  career  sufficient  to  gratify  an  eager  ambition. 
Yet  is  it  nevertheless  true  that  the  work  of  Samuel 
Adams  in  the  largest  sense  ended  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1776.  All  that  came  after  was  secondary  and  slight 


154  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

compared  to  what  had  gone  before.  His  work  after 
1776  might  have  been  done  by  others.  His  work 
before  1776,  whether  any  other  man  could  have  per 
formed  it  or  not,  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  performed 
by  him  alone,  and  it  not  only  exhibited  high  qualities 
of  mind  and  character,  but  it  brought  lasting  results 
which  entitle  him  to  be  reckoned  among  the  greatest 
public  men  of  whom  the  history  of  the  United  States 
makes  record.  Without  exaggeration,  it  may  be  said 
also  that  what  he  accomplished  and  the  abilities 
which  he  displayed  give  him  a  sure  place  among  the 
most  important  men  of  his  age,  whether  at  home  or 
abroad.  The  ten  years,  moreover,  preceding  1776 
showed  nothing  but  success,  won  with  an  efficiency 
and  freedom  from  error  rarely  to  be  met  with.  The 
twenty  years  after,  on  the  other  hand,  made  it  appar 
ent  that  he  was  not  fitted  for  the  great  work  which 
the  new  conditions  demanded,  as  he  had  been  for 
the  equally  important  but  widely  different  work 
which  alone  had  made  the  new  conditions  and  the 
new  problems  possible. 

Samuel  Adams  was,  as  he  was  often  called,  the 
"  man  of  the  Revolution."  His  work  in  life  was  to 
organize  revolution  and  separate  the  colonies  from 
England.  But  although  a  great  organizer,  he  wTas 
not  a  man  of  constructive  power.  Outside  of  Massa 
chusetts,  where  he  understood  the  people,  the  com 
munity,  and  the  modes  of  government,  he  could  pull 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  155 

down,  but  he  could  not  build  up.  Within  the  Com 
monwealth,  he  could  play  a  leading  part  in  making 
the  constitution  of  1780  one  of  the  best  written  con 
stitutions  ever  framed,  because  that  merely  involved 
a  transfer  of  the  powers  and  methods  of  government 
exercised  by  crown  and  people  under  the  provincial 
form  to  the  people  of  the  State.  Outside  Massachu 
setts,  where  the  problem  was  to  make  a  nation  out  of 
thirteen  jarring  States,  Adams  failed,  for  there  he 
was  on  new  ground,  filled  with  unreasoning  suspi 
cions  of  external  authority  which  he  had  always  re 
sisted,  and  unable  to  see  that  there  was  an  absolute 
distinction  between  the  rule  of  the  English  crown 
and  that  of  a  government  formed  by  the  people  of 
the  thirteen  States  themselves.  At  Philadelphia,  his 
jealousy  of  a  standing  army  led  him  to  oppose  half 
pay  to  officers  on  retirement.  At  Philadelphia  he 
took  a  conspicuous  share  in  framing  the  Articles  of 
Confederation,  and  was  unable  to  see  not  merely  that 
they  would  not  work,  but  that  they  were  so  funda 
mentally  wrong  in  conception  and  principle  that 
they  were  doomed  to  failure.  He  had  no  liking  for 
the  Constitution  of  1787,  and  no  sympathy  with  the 
movement  which  produced  it.  He  was  finally  brought 
to  its  support  by  the  pressure  of  his  friends,  and  his 
support  was  most  essential ;  but  he  neither  under 
stood  it  nor  believed  in  it.  He  was  by  nature  emi 
nently  conservative  in  the  great  underlying  principles 


156  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

of  law  and  order.  No  one  was  more  stern  than  he 
in  measures  to  repress  and  punish  the  Shays  Rebel 
lion,  for,  revolutionist  as  he  was,  he  hated  chaos  and 
loved  order  of  a  pretty  rigid  kind.  Yet  he  opposed 
Washington's  administration  in  all  its  great  policies 
and  in  a  manner  which  demonstrated  that  he  had 
utterly  failed  to  comprehend  that  the  national  gov 
ernment  was  the  only  means  by  which  the  States  and 
people  of  America  had  been  rescued  from  a  hopeless 
and  widespread  anarchy,  of  which  the  Shays  Rebel 
lion,  which  he  had  helped  to  crush,  was  but  a  single 
manifestation. 

It  is  very  seldom  that  we  find  in  the  same  man 
the  power  to  pull  down  combined  with  an  equal 
ability  to  build  up.  The  men  who  made  the  Consti 
tution,  although  all  supporters  of  the  Revolution, 
were  not  the  men  who  planned  the  struggle  and 
brought  on  the  war.  Washington  is  a  rare  example 
of  a  man,  who,  having  led  in  the  destruction  of  one 
political  system,  is  then  able  to  exhibit  an  even 
greater  capacity  in  constructing  a  new  one  upon  the 
ruins  of  the  old.  Yet  even  Washington  had  no 
important  part  in  preparing  revolution.  When  he 
entered  upon  his  great  task  at  Cambridge,  that  of 
Samuel  Adams  was  finished.  So  it  is  that  when  we 
turn  back  from  the  period  of  construction  to  the 
period  when  revolution  was  engendered  and  made 
inevitable,  we  find  that  there  is  no  one  who  ap- 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  157 

preaches  Samuel  Adams  in  effectiveness  or  capacity 
as  a  statesman  and  leader  of  men. 

He  was  a  Puritan  by  descent  and  a  Puritan  him 
self.  Robust  and  vigorous,  physically  and  mentally, 
his  gray  eyes  and  strongly  cut  features  look  out  at 
us  from  Copley's  picture  with  a  prevailing  sense  of 
force,  which  time  cannot  dim  nor  fading  colors  lessen. 
He  was  deeply  religious,  and  the  Puritan  hatred  of 
Roman  papacy  and  British  episcopacy  burned  hot 
within  him.  He  had  no  care  for  material  things. 
He  lived  in  respectable  poverty  all  his  days,  and 
desired  nothing  more.  The  best  education  possible 
to  the  time  and  place  was  given  him,  and  made  him 
a  good  classical  scholar  and  an  especial  lover  of 
Latin.  Everything  that  bore  upon  politics  or  his 
tory,  the  philosophy  or  science  of  government,  or  the 
rights  of  men,  he  had  read  and  pondered  and  knew 
with  an  exactness  which  made  his  learning  as  ready 
in  use  as  it  was  thorough  in  possession.  He  was  a 
man  of  pure  life,  beloved  in  his  household,  cheerful 
and  agreeable  in  company,  and  with  a  power  of  at 
taching  young  men  to  him,  which  shows  that  his 
nature  was  neither  austere  nor  ungenial.  But  his 
most  remarkable  quality  was  an  utter  absence  of 
egotism,  so  complete,  indeed,  that  it  kept  him  long 
from  his  true  place  in  history,  and  has  made  it  most 
difficult  to  know  him.  In  all  his  published  writings 
he  was  absolutely  objective  and  impersonal,  and  in 


158  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

his  private  letters  he  never  talks  of  himself.  Even 
when  he  is  assailed  by  jealousies  and  attacked  with 
injustice,  he  puts  it  all  aside  as  indifferent  and  of  no 
consequence.  Not  that  he  was  a  forgiving  man ;  he 
was  disposed  to  be  relentless,  and  Dr.  Johnson  would 
have  found  him  a  good  hater,  but  his  own  personality 
never  figured  in  his  enmity.  In  most  strong  men, 
the  personal  equation  is  very  large.  It  was  so  in 
the  Adams  family,  and  John  Adams  always  looks  at 
every  event  first  as  it  touches  himself,  so  that  his 
writings,  while  they  brim  over  with  egotism,  have 
also  the  intensely  human  note  which  ever  appeals 
to  human  sympathies.  Samuel  Adams  was  a  very 
strong  man  indeed,  but  this  personal  note  is  lacking, 
not  only  in  his  own  writings,  but  in  all  that  his  con 
temporaries  wrote  about  him.  They  describe  and 
criticise  and  praise  him,  but  they  never  tell  us  that 
he  ever  said  anything  about  himself.  He  had  in 
truth  to  the  full  the  old  Puritan  temperament,  which 
in  the  days  of  Charles  made  the  casters-down  of 
church  and  throne  lose  sight  of  everything  but  their 
religion,  and  in  the  days  of  George  III  made  Samuel 
Adams  forget  everything,  including  himself,  in  his 
mission,  as  he  conceived  it,  of  separating  America 
from  England. 

With  a  patience  which  nothing  could  weary,  he 
carried  on  his  opposition  to  the  royal  governors.  He 
got  possession  of  Boston,  he  got  possession  of  the 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  159 

province  and  the  Legislature.  He  wove  bonds  of 
connection  with  the  leading  men  in  England  and  in 
all  the  colonies.  He  organized  Boston,  then  the  Leg 
islature,  then  all  the  towns,  and  then  came  the  conti 
nent.  He  argued  his  case  on  every  point,  in  state 
papers,  in  resolutions,  in  declarations,  in  countless 
articles  in  the  newspapers,  in  innumerable  letters  to 
correspondents  everywhere.  No  question  was  too 
large  for  his  grasp,  no  detail  too  small  to  be  over 
looked.  Hutchinson  noted  that  as  the  controversy 
progressed,  Adams  changed  even  his  formal  phrases, 
and  every  change  pointed  toward  popular  rights  and 
independence.  His  whole  life  was  given  to  the 
work,  and  his  industry  and  capacity  for  labor  seem 
almost  superhuman.  His  light  burning  far  into  the 
night  was  a  familiar  sight  in  the  little  town,  and 
people  used  to  say  when  they  saw  it,  "  There  is  Sam 
Adams  writing  against  the  Tories."  He  was  no  ora 
tor,  and  his  style  in  writing  was  plain  and  unorna- 
mented  to  the  last  degree,  but  he  spoke  with  a  force, 
clearness,  and  mastery,  and  wrote  with  a  skill  and 
strength,  which  carried  conviction  captive. 

Greatest  he  was,  perhaps,  as  a  manager  of  men 
where  two  or  three  were  gathered  together.  He 
passed  hours  on  the  wharves,  in  the  shipyards  or  the 
shops,  and  the  shipwrights  and  sailors  and  mechanics 
of  Boston  followed  him  implicitly  and  moved  at  his 
word.  Galloway,  the  Pennsylvania  Tory,  says  that 


160  SAMUEL   ADAMS 

Adams  controlled  the  mob  in  Philadelphia,  although 
he  had  never  seen  Philadelphia  until  Congress  met 
there  in  1774.  How  he  did  it,  no  man  knew  then  or 
knows  now,  but  the  mere  charge  is  a  tribute  to  his 
singular  power  over  the  mass  of  the  people,  for  he 
was  no  demagogue,  and  never  had  any  of  the  arts 
of  one. 

He  watched  also  for  all  the  young  men  of  promise, 
yoked  them  to  his  cause,  and  made  them  not  only  his 
followers,  but  his  devoted  friends,  as  they  appeared 
in  turn  upon  the  stage  of  action.  He  it  was  who 
captured  Hancock,  the  rich,  vain,  generous,  difficult, 
not  over-intelligent  aristocrat,  for  the  popular  side. 
The  Warrens,  Church,  Quincy,  John  Adams  himself, 
were  all  brought  forward  by  him.  Yet  for  himself 
he  always  took  a  second  place.  He  was  never 
speaker,  only  clerk,  of  the  House  which  he  ruled. 
He  was  rarely  first  on  the  great  committees,  although 
in  the  hour  of  trial  the  post  of  danger  and  of  leader 
ship  was  always  his.  So  much  power  and  so  much 
self-effacement  are  seldom  found  together,  but  the 
combination  displays  that  marvellous  tact  which  was 
never  at  fault,  and  that  ability  to  manage  men  which 
in  politics  and  history  is  not  easy  to  equal. 

Thus  he  gradually,  step  by  step,  led  the  resistance 
to  England  forward.  No  threats  or  perils  could 
move  that  iron  courage,  no  bribes  of  place  or  power 
or  money  could  touch  that  stern  integrity.  It  was  a 


SAMUEL   ADAMS  161 

continual  advance.  Even  in  moments  of  fatigue, 
when  the  popular  feeling  was  lulled,  he  was  still 
pressing  forward,  still  writing,  still  arguing,  still 
moving  the  minds  of  men.  In  this  way  he  gradually 
created  a  public  opinion  which  became  irresistible, 
and  which  astounded  his  opponents  when  the  moment 
came  to  call  it  forth.  No  crisis  ever  found  him  sur 
prised.  He  was  always  prepared,  and  met  every 
ordeal  victoriously. 

He  stands  out  in  history  not  only  as  the  organizer 
of  revolution  and  the  teacher  who  made  revolution 
possible,  but  as  the  first  man  who  understood  and 
wielded  the  force  of  the  people  —  the  great  demo 
cratic  force  which  then  entered  upon  its  career  and 
which  was  destined  to  change  the  entire  political 
form  of  Western  civilization  .\  This  was  a  very  large 
part  to  play  in  the  world's  history,  and  ,it  puts 
Samuel  Adams  among  the  few  leaders  of  men  who 
in  the  days  of  Louis  XV  and  George  III  made  possi 
ble  the  events  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  opened 
the  way  for  the  rise  of  the  United  StatesX 


11 


THEODORE   ROOSEVELT.1 

No  human  character  can  be  justly  depicted,  with 
all  its  lights  and  shades  duly  touched  and  set  forth,  in 
a  few  pages  or  a  dozen  phrases.  How  much  more 
impossible  to  make  clear  to  others  a  human  character 
which  has  been  caught  in  the  toils  of  great  affairs, 
upon  which  responsibilities,  growing  ever  more  vast, 
have  acted  and  reacted,  and  which  has  thus  been 
modified,  educated,  and  developed !  All  this  is  pre 
eminently  true  of  President  Roosevelt.  No  man  has 
lived  the  life  of  his  time  so  amply  as  he ;  no  one  has 
known  humanity  in  so  many  phases,  no  one  has  wider 
sympathies  or  so  many  interests.  It  would  be  worse 
than  idle  for  any  one,  no  matter  how  intimate  his 
friendship,  to  fancy  that  he  could  depict  a  character 
so  many-sided,  so  tried  and  tested  in  such  multiform 
experiences  within  the  brief  space  allowed  me,  and  in 

1  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  the  publishers  of  McClure's  Mag 
azine  for  permission  to  include  this  article  in  this  volume.  I  reprint  it 
with  a  full  realization  of  the  utter  impossibility  of  giving  any  proper 
description  of  President  Roosevelt  within  such  narrow  limits.  I  venture 
to  republish  it  because  it  was  an  attempt,  at  a  critical  moment,  to  give 
an  impression  of  the  real  man,  and  only  an  impression,  but  at  the  same 
time  one  sufficient  to  counteract  some  of  the  misunderstandings  which 
were  rife  during  the  Presidential  election  of  1904,  when  the  article 
appeared. 


THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  163 

the  hurry  and  excitement  inseparable  from  the  closing 
days  of  a  presidential  election. 

But  perhaps  out  of  my  personal  knowledge  I  can 
give  an  impression  ;  and  to  that  I  can  best  attain  by 
dispersing  some  of  the  myths  and  misconceptions 
engendered  partly  by  accident  and  partly  by  malice, 
which,  if  not  actually  believed,  have  certainly  con 
fused  the  minds  of  some  very  honest  and  very 
patriotic  people,  and  have  even  troubled  many  men 
who  thoroughly  believe  in  the  President  and  fully 
intend  to  vote  for  him. 

There  are  few  things  in  this  world  so  dangerous  as 
catchwords.  President  Roosevelt  once  used  the  word 
"  strenuous"  as  a  title  for  some  essays.  The  popular 
fancy  pounced  upon  the  word,  the  popular  humorist 
caught  it  up,  and  to-day  there  is  an  idea  widely 
diffused  through  the  mass  of  the  American  people 
that  Theodore  Roosevelt  leads  an  existence  of  feverish 
and  almost  diseased  activity,  which,  if  not  expended 
on  things  physical,  is  projected  upon  public  affairs. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  is  certainly  a  man  of  great  physical  and 
mental  energy.  If  he  had  not  been  he  could  not 
have  performed  the  extraordinary  amount  of  work 
which  he  has  accomplished  in  the  last  twenty-five 
years ;  yet  the  very  accomplishment  of  that  work 
shows  that  his  activity  is  neither  feverish  nor  abnor 
mal  nor  diseased,  but  regulated  and  controlled ;  for 
if  it  had  not  been  regulated  and  controlled  it  would 


164  THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

have  effected  nothing.  His  daily  life  does  not  differ 
in  any  respect  from  that  of  any  other  very  busy  man 
of  great  energy,  who  finds  rest  and  relief  not  only  in 
active  out-of-door  life,  but  in  a  wide  and  constant 
reading  of  books,  — a  habit,  by  the  way,  quite  as  char 
acteristic  of  the  man  as  any  other,  but  of  which  the 
newspaper  critics  and  humorists  tell  us  little. 

In  the  same  way  the  President  is  described  and 
widely  accepted  as  hot-headed,  rash,  and  impulsive, 
prone  to  sudden  resolutions,  and  acting  upon  them 
without  sufficient  consideration.  The  origin  of  this 
misconception  is  as  slender  as  that  of  the  strenuous 
life.  Theodore  Roosevelt  is  a  man  of  strong  convic 
tions,  who  started  as  a  boy  with  some  high  and  fixed 
ideals  of  life  and  conduct,  to  which  he  has  tenaciously 
clung.  Like  most  young  men  similarly  equipped,  he 
was  disposed  at  the  outset  to  be  very  certain  of  his 
opinions  and  very  vigorous  in  their  expression.  But 
unlike  most  other  young  men,  he  had  the  perilous 
opportunity,  when  barely  out  of  college,  to  put  his 
opinions  into  practice  and  to  express  them  in  perma 
nent  form  both  in  speech  and  writing,  —  a  trial  which 
youth  usually  escapes.  The  care  of  statement  which 
comes  with  age  and  experience  was  sometimes  lacking 
to  the  young  writer  and  assemblyman;  as  it  would  be 
to  any  young  man.  But  the  written  word  and  the 
accomplished  deed  remain;  and  hence  the  delusion 
has  sprung  up,  and  been  carefully  fostered  for  politi- 


THEODORE    ROOSEVELT  165 

cal  purposes,  that  all  the  strong  utterances  of  youth, 
to  which  they  are  entirely  becoming,  are  those  of  the 
present  moment,  and  mean  rashness  and  indiscretion 
in  the  mature  statesman,  to  whom  these  particular 
forms  of  utterance  might  not  be  at  all  fitting.  There 
is  no  necessary  connection  between  the  two ;  between 
the  generous  and  often  unmeasured  expression  of 
youth  and  the  instructed  mind  of  the  man  who  has 
known  men  and  cities  and  tasted  the  delight  of  battle. 
We  judge  the  mature  public  man  by  what  he  is,  not 
by  what  he  may  have  said  twenty-five  years  before, 
honest  and  brave  as  that  early  opinion  and  that  boy 
ish  speech  surely  were. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  apprehends  very  quickly. 
When  he  has  thought  a  subject  out  thoroughly  and 
knows  what  he  means  to  do,  he  acts  promptly. 
When,  after  full  consideration,  he  has  made  up  his 
mind  as  to  what  is  right  he  is  unbending;  but  no 
man  has  been  in  the  White  House  for  many  years 
who  is  so  ready  to  take  advice,  who  has  made  up  his 
mind  more  slowly,  more  deliberately,  and  after  more 
consultation  than  Theodore  Roosevelt.  No  President 
within  my  observation  has  ever  consulted  with  the 
leaders  of  his  party,  not  only  in  the  House  and 
Senate,  but  in  the  States  and  in  the  press,  so  fre 
quently  and  to  such  good  purpose  as  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
although  a  favorite  charge  is  that  he  is  headstrong 
and  wishes  no  advisers. 


166  THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

Another  misconception  growing  out  of  the  same 
theory  and  much  urged  by  his  political  opponents  and 
by  sundry  neurotic  newspapers,  is  that  Mr.  Roosevelt 
is  extremely  reckless,  and  would  not  hesitate  for 
an  instant  to  plunge  the  country  into  war.1  This 
absurdity  grows,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  very  largely 
out  of  the  President's  passion  for  athletics  and  for 
more  or  less  dangerous  sports,  and  because  he  went 
so  readily  and  quickly  himself  as  a  soldier  into  the 
war  with  Spain.  But  this  theory  is  of  course  a  mere 
confusion  of  ideas.  Because  a  man  likes  to  take  the 
risks  of  the  hunting-field  or  of  the  pursuit  of  big 
game,  or  because  he  is  eager  to  fight  personally  when 
his  country  goes  to  war,  it  may  follow  that  he  is  a 
brave  man  with  plenty  of  nerve ;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  he  is  therefore  a  fool,  who  regards  our 
foreign  relations  in  the  same  light  as  he  would  dan 
gerous  or  exciting  field-sports.  The  fact,  indeed,  is 
just  the  reverse.  A  man  who  has  faced  danger, 
either  in  hunting  or  in  war,  is  the  very  last  man  to 
put  other  men's  lives  in  peril  without  the  sternest 
necessity,  and  is  the  first  man  to  feel  most  keenly  in 
this  respect  the  heavy  responsibility  of  a  great  office. 

In  the  space  allotted  to  me  I  can  only  touch  on 

1  The  peace  between  Russia  and  Japan  and  the  attitude  of  the  Pres 
ident  in  regard  to  the  Morocco  difficulty  which  have  come  to  pass  since 
his  re-election  in  1904,  are  interesting  illustrations  of  the  absurdity  of 
the  charge  that  he  loved  war  for  its  own  sake,  and  of  the  truth  of  what 
was  written  in  this  article  in  refutation  of  that  charge. 


THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  167 

'  •"">»-..... 

these  two  or  three  popular  misconceptions  which  a 
personal  friendship  of  many  years'  standing  render 
more  absurd  to  me  than  those  which  usually  swarm 
about  Presidents,  and  which,  in  this  case,  are  being 
used  for  somewhat  mean  and  low  political  objects. 
But  in  the  many  attacks  made  upon  President  Roose 
velt  there  is  one  thought  which  has  come  again  and 
again  into  my  mind,  knowing  him  as  I  do.  Every 
nation,  or  rather  every  historic  race,  has  certain  attri 
butes,  in  addition  to  the  great  and  more  obvious 
virtues,  which  it  believes  to  be  peculiarly  its  own, 
and  in  which  it  takes  an  especial  pride.  (We  of  the 
United  States  like  to  think  of  the  typical  American 
as  a  brave  and  honest  man,  very  human,  and  with 
no  vain  pretence  to  infallibility.  We  would  have 
him  simple  in  his  home  life,  democratic  in  his  ways, 
with  the  highest  education  which  the  world  can  give, 
kind  to  the  weak,  tender  and  loyal  and  true,  never 
quarrelsome  but  never  afraid  to  fight,  with  a  strong, 
sane  sense  of  humor,  and  with  a  strain  of  adventure 
in  the  blood,  which  we  shall  never  cease  to  love  until 
those  ancestors  of  ours  who  conquered  a  continent 
have  drifted  a  good  deal  farther  into  the  past  than 
is  the  case  to-day.  ^  These  are  the  qualities  which  all 
men  admire  and  respect,  and  which  thus  combined  we 
like  to  think  peculiarly  American.  As  I  enumerate 
them  I  describe  Theodore  Roosevelt.  The  use  to 
which  he  has  put  these  qualities  of  heart  and  char- 


168  THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

acter,  as  well  as  the  fine  abilities  which  are  also  his, 
is  cut  pretty  deep  into  the  history  of  our  last  twenty- 
five  years,  whether  in  the  Commission  of  the  Civil 
Service,  in  the  Police  Commission,  in  the  Navy 
Department,  in  the  Spanish  War,  at  Albany,  or  in 
the  White  House. 


SENATOR   HOAR1 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  Mr.  Speaker,  Senators,  and  Gentle 
men  of  the  House  of  Representatives : 

I  am  here  by  your  invitation,  which  is  at  once  an 
honor  and  a  command.  I  am  to  speak  to  you  of  a 
remarkable  man  and  of  a  long  and  distinguished  career 
of  public  service.  I  am  to  speak  to  you  of  a  man  who 
has  taken  his  place  in  that  noble  company  who  have 
made  Massachusetts  what  she  has  been  in  the  past, 
what  she  is  to-day,  and  to  whom  she  owes  her  great 
part  in  history  and  her  large  influence  in  the  Union 
of  States.  Here  where  Mr.  HOAR  rendered  his  first 
public  service,  here  where  he  was  five  times  commis 
sioned  to  represent  the  State  in  the  great  council  of 
the  nation,  is  the  fittest  place  in  which  to  honor  his 
memory  and  make  record  of  our  grief  for  his  death. 
I  cannot  hope  to  do  full  justice  to  such  a  theme, 
but  the  sincerity  of  my  endeavor  and  the  affection 
which  inspires  it  give  me  confidence  to  proceed  and 
assure  me  of  your  indulgence. 

1  An  address  delivered  on  January  19,  1905,  before  the  Legislature 
of  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives,  in  the  State  House  at  Boston. 


170  SENATOR   HOAR 

Men  distinguished  above  their  fellows,  who  have 
won  a  place  in  history,  may  be  of  interest  and  impor 
tance  to  posterity  as  individuals  or  as  representatives 
of  their  time,  or  in  both  capacities.  Hobbes  and  Des 
cartes,  for  instance,  are  chiefly  if  not  wholly  interesting 
for  what  they  themselves  were  and  for  their  contribu 
tions  to  human  thought,  which  might  conceivably  have 
been  made  at  any  epoch.  On  the  other  hand,  Pepys 
and  St.  Simon,  substantially  contemporary  with  the 
two  philosophers,  are  primarily  of  interest  and  im 
portance  as  representative  men,  embodiments  and 
exponents  of  the  life  and  thought  of  their  time. 
Benjamin  Franklin,  to  take  a  later  example,  was  not 
only  deeply  interesting  as  an  individual,  but  he  seemed 
to  embody  in  himself  the  tendencies  of  thought  and 
the  entire  meaning  and  attitude  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  its  broadest  significance.  Mr.  HOAR  be 
longs  to  the  class  which  is  illustrated  in  such  a  high 
degree  by  Franklin,  for  he  has  won  and  will  hold  his 
place  in  history  not  only  by  what  he  was  and  what 
he  did,  but  because  he  was  a  very  representative  man 
in  a  period  fruitful  in  great  events  and  conspicuous 
for  the  consolidation  of  the  United  States,  —  the  great 
est  single  fact  of  the  last  century,  measured  by  its 
political  and  economic  effect  upon  the  fortunes  of 
mankind  and  upon  the  history  of  the  world. 

To  appreciate  properly  and  understand  intelligently 
any  man  who  has  made  substantial  achievement  in  art 


SENATOR   HOAR  171 

or  letters,  in  philosophy  or  science,  in  war  or  politics, 
and  who  has  also  lived  to  the  full  the  life  of  his  time, 
we  must  turn  first  to  those  conditions  over  which  he 
himself  had  no  control.  In  his  inheritances,  in  the 
time  and  place  of  birth,  in  the  influences  and  the  at 
mosphere  of  childhood  and  youth  we  can  often  find 
the  key  to  the  mystery  which  every  human  existence 
presents,  and  obtain  a  larger  explanation  of  the  mean 
ing  of  the  character  and  career  before  us  than  the 
man's  own  life  and  deeds  will  by  themselves  disclose. 
This  is  especially  true  of  Mr.  HOAR,  for  his  race 
and  descent,  as  well  as  his  time  and  place  of  birth, 
are  full  of  significance  if  we  would  rightly  under 
stand  one  who  was  at  once  a  remarkable  and  a 
highly  representative  man.  He  came  of  a  purely 
English  stock.  His  family  in  England  were  people 
of  consideration  and  substance,  possessing  both  edu 
cation  and  established  position  before  America  was 
discovered.  Belonging  in  the  seventeenth  century  to 
that  class  of  prosperous  merchants  and  tradesmen,  of 
country  gentlemen  and  farmers  which  gave  to  Eng 
land  Cromwell  and  Hampden,  Eliot  and  Pym,  they 
were  Puritans  in  religion  and  in  politics  supporters  of 
the  Parliament  and  opponents  of  the  King.  Charles 
Hoar,  sheriff  of  Gloucester  and  enrolled  in  the  record 
of  the  city  government  as  "Generosus,"  or  "gentle 
man,"  died  in  1638.  Two  years  later  his  widow, 
Joanna  Hoar,  with  five  of  her  children,  emigrated 


172  SENATOR   HOAR 

to  New  England.  One  of  the  sons,  Leonard  Hoar, 
chosen  by  his  father  to  go  to  Oxford  and  become  a 
minister,  entered  Harvard  College,  then  just  founded, 
and  graduated  there  in  1650.  He  soon  after  returned 
to  England,  where  he  was  presented  to  a  living  under 
the  Protectorate.  He  married  Bridget,  the  daughter 
of  John  Lisle,  commonly  called  Lord  Lisle,  one  of  the 
regicides  assassinated  later  at  Lausanne,  where  he 
had  taken  refuge,  by  royal  emissaries  after  the  King 
had  come  to  his  own  again.  John  Lisle's  wife,  the 
Lady  Alicia,  died  on  the  scaffold  in  1685,  the  most 
famous  and  pathetic  victim  in  the  tragedy  of  Jeffreys' 
"  Bloody  Assize."  Her  son-in-law,  Leonard  Hoar, 
ejected  from  his  living  under  the  Act  of  Uniformity, 
studied  medicine,  and  returning  to  New  England  ten 
years  later  became  in  1672  president  of  Harvard 
College  and  died  in  1675. 

Senator  HOAR  was  descended  from  an  elder  brother 
of  the  president  of  Harvard,  John  Hoar,  evidently  a 
man  of  as  strong  character  and  marked  abilities  as  the 
rest  of  his  family.  The  old  records  contain  more  than 
one  account  of  his  clashings  with  the  intolerant  and 
vigorous  theocracy  which  governed  Massachusetts,  and 
of  the  fines  and  imprisonments  which  he  endured ; 
but  he  never  seems  either  to  have  lost  the  respect  of 
the  community  or  to  have  checked  his  speech.  We 
get  a  bright  glimpse  of  him  in  1690,  when  Sewall 
says,  in  his  diary  on  November  8  of  that  year : 


SENATOR   HOAR  173 

"  Jno.  Hoar  comes  into  the  lobby,  and  sais  he  comes  from 
the  Lord,  by  the  Lord,  to  speak  for  the  Lord ;  complains 
that  sins  as  bad  as  Sodom's  found  here." 

In  every  generation  following  we  find  men  of  the 
same  marked  character  who  were  graduates  of  Har 
vard,  active  citizen s,  successful  in  their  callings,  taking 
a  full  share  of  public  duties  and  in  the  life  of  their 
times.  Senator  HOAR'S  great-grandfather,  who  had 
served  in  the  old  French  war,  and  his  grandfather 
were  both  in  the  fight  at  Concord  Bridge.  His  father, 
Samuel  Hoar,  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  law 
yers  in  Massachusetts.  He  served  in  both  branches  of 
the  State  legislature,  and  was  a  Member  of  Congress. 
Honored  throughout  the  State,  his  most  conspicuous 
action  was  his  journey  to  Charleston  to  defend  certain 
negro  sailors ;  and  from  that  city,  where  his  life  was  in 
danger,  he  was  expelled  because  he  desired  to  give 
his  legal  services  to  protect  men  of  another  and  an 
enslaved  race. 

On  his  mother's  side  Senator  HOAR  was  a  descend 
ant  of  the  John  Sherman  who  landed  in  Massachusetts 
in  1630  and  became  the  progenitor  of  a  family  which 
has  been  extraordinarily  prolific  in  men  of  high  ability 
and  distinction.  In  the  century  just  closed  this  family 
gave  to  the  country  and  to  history  one  of  our  most  bril 
liant  soldiers,  one  of  our  most  eminent  statesmen  and 
financiers,  and  through  the  female  line  the  great  law 
yer  and  orator,  Mr.  Evarts,  and  E.  Rock  wood  Hoar, 


174  SENATOR   HOAR 

distinguished  alike  as  judge,  as  Member  of  Congress, 
and  as  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States.  ^  In 
the  eighteenth  century  we  owe  to  the  same  blood  and 
name  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  great  men 
who  made  the  Revolution  and  founded  the  United 
States,  —  Eoger  Sherman,  signer  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  signer  of  the  articles  of  Confederation, 
signer  of  the  Constitution,  first  Senator  from  Connec 
ticut,  and  grandfather  of  Senator  HOAR,  as  he  was 
also  of  Mr.  Evarts.  I  have  touched  upon  this  gene 
alogy  more,  perhaps,  than  is  usual  upon  such  occa 
sions,  not  only  because  it  is  remarkable,  but  because 
it  seems  to  me  full  of  light  and  meaning  in  connection 
with  those  who,  in  the  years  just  past,  had  the  right 
to  claim  it  for  their  own.  We  see  these  people,  when 
American  history  begins,  identified  with  the  cause  of 
constitutional  freedom  and  engaged  in  resistance  to 
what  they  deemed  tyranny  in  church  and  state.  They 
became  exiles  for  their  faith,  and  the  blood  of  the 
victims  of  Stuart  revenge  is  sprinkled  on  their  gar 
ments.  They  venture  their  lives  again  at  the  outbreak 
of  our  own  Revolution.  They  take  a  continuous  part 
in  public  affairs.  They  feel  it  to  be  their  business  to 
help  the  desolate  and  oppressed,  from  John  Hoar  shel 
tering  and  succoring  the  Christian  Indians,  in  the  dark 
and  bloody  days  of  King  Philip's  war,  to  Samuel  Hoar, 
going  forth  into  the  midst  of  a  bitterly  hostile  com 
munity  to  defend  the  helpless  negroes.  The  tradition 


SENATOR   HOAR  175 

of  sound  learning,  the  profound  belief  in  the  highest 
education,  illustrated  by  Leonard  Hoar  in  the  seven 
teenth  century,  are  never  lost  or  weakened  in  the 
succeeding  generations.  Through  all  their  history 
runs  unchanged  the  deep  sense  of  public  responsibil 
ity,  of  patriotism,  and  of  devotion  to  high  ideals  of 
conduct.  The  stage  upon  which  they  played  their 
several  parts  might  be  large  or  small,  but  the  light 
which  guided  them  was  always  the  same.  They  were 
Puritans  of  the  Puritans.  As  the  centuries  passed, 
the  Puritan  was  modified  in  many  ways,  but  the  ele 
mental  qualities  of  the  powerful  men  who  had  crushed 
crown  and  mitre  in  a  common  ruin,  altered  the  course 
of  English  history,  and  founded  a  new  State  in  a  new 
world,  remained  unchanged. 

So  parented  and  so  descended,  Mr.  HOAR  inherited 
certain  deep-rooted  conceptions  of  duty,  of  character, 
and  of  the  conduct  of  life,  which  were  as  much  a  part 
of  his  being  as  the  color  of  his  eyes  or  the  shape  of 
his  hand.  Where  and  when  was  he  born  to  this 
noble  heritage  ?  We  must  ask  and  answer  this  ques 
tion,  for  there  is  a  world  of  suggestion  in  the  place 
and  time  of  a  man's  birth,  when  that  man  has  come 
to  have  a  meaning  and  an  importance  to  his  own 
generation  as  well  as  to  those  which  succeed  it  in  the 
slow  procession  of  the  years. 

Concord,  proclaimed  by  Webster  as  one  of  the 
glories  of  Massachusetts  which  no  untoward  fate 


176  SENATOR   HOAR 

could  wrest  from  her,  was  the  place  of  his  birth. 
About  the  quiet  village  were  gathered  all  the  austere 
traditions  of  the  colonial  time.  It  had  witnessed  the 
hardships  of  the  early  settlers ;  it  had  shared  and 
shuddered  in  the  horrors  of  Indian  wars ;  it  had  seen 
the  slow  and  patient  conquest  of  the  wilderness. 
There  within  its  boundaries  had  blazed  high  a  great 
event,  catching  the  eyes  of  a  careless  world  which 
little  dreamed  how  far  the  fire  then  lighted  would 
spread.  Along  its  main  road,  overarched  by  elms, 
the  soldiers  of  England  marched  that  pleasant  April 
morning.  There  is  the  bridge  where  the  farmers  re 
turned  the  British  fire  and  advanced.  There  is  the 
tomb  of  the  two  British  soldiers  who  fell  in  the 
skirmish,  and  whose  grave  marks  the  spot  where 
the  power  of  England  on  the  North  American  conti 
nent  first  began  to  ebb.  Truly  there  is  no  need  of 
shafts  of  stone  or  statues  of  bronze,  for  the  whole 
place  is  a  monument  to  the  deeds  which  there  were 
done.  The  very  atmosphere  is  redolent  of  great 
memories ;  the  gentle  ripple  of  the  placid  river,  the 
low  voice  of  the  wind  among  the  trees,  all  murmur 
the  story  of  patriotism  and  teach  devotion  to  the 
nation,  which,  from  "  the  bridge  that  arched  the 
flood/'  set  forth  upon  its  onward  march. 

And  then,  just  as  Mr.  HOAR  began  to  know  his 
birthplace,  the  town  entered  upon  a  new  phase,  which 
was  to  give  it  a  place  in  literature  and  in  the  develop- 


SENATOR   HOAR  177 

ment  of  modern  thought  as  eminent  as  that  which  it 
had  already  gained  in  the  history  of  the  country. 
Emerson  made  Concord  his  home  in  1835,  Haw 
thorne  came  there  to  live  seven  years  later,  and 
Thoreau,  a  native  of  the  town,  was  growing  to  man 
hood  in  those  same  years.  To  Mr.  HOAR'S  inheri 
tance  of  public  service,  of  devotion  to  duty,  and  of 
lofty  ideals  of  conduct,  to  the  family  influences  which 
surrounded  him  and  which  all  pointed  to  work  and 
achievement  as  the  purpose  and  rewards  of  life,  were 
added  those  of  the  place  where  he  lived,  the  famous 
little  town  which  drew  from  the  past  lessons  of  pride 
and  love  of  country,  and  offered  in  the  present  ex 
amples  of  lives  given  to  literature  and  philosophy,  to 
the  study  of  nature,  and  to  the  hopes  and  destiny  of 
man  here  and  hereafter. 

Thus  highly  gifted  in  his  ancestry,  in  his  family, 
and  in  his  traditions,  as  well  as  in  the  place  and  the 
community  in  which  he  was  to  pass  the  formative 
years  of  boyhood  and  youth,  Mr.  HOAR  was  equally 
fortunate  in  the  time  of  his  birth,  which  often  means 
so  much  in  the  making  of  a  character  and  career. 
He  was  born  on  the  29th  of  August,  1826.  Super 
ficially  it  was  one  of  the  most  uninteresting  periods 
in  the  history  of  Western  civilization  —  dominated  in 
Europe  by  small  men,  mean  in  its  hopes,  low  in  its 
ambitions.  But  beneath  the  surface  vast  forces  were 
germinating  and  gathering,  which  in  their  develop- 


12 


178  SENATOR   HOAR 

ment  were  to  affect   profoundly   both   Europe   and 
America. 

The  great  movement  which,  beginning  with  the  re 
volt  of  the  American  colonies,  had  wrought  the 
French  Revolution,  convulsed  Europe,  and  made 
Napoleon  possible,  had  spent  itself  and  sunk  into  ex 
haustion  at  Waterloo.  The  reaction  reigned  supreme. 
It  was  the  age  of  the  Metternichs  and  Castlereaghs, 
of  the  Eldons  and  Liverpools,  of  Spanish  and  Neapol 
itan  Bourbons.  With  a  stupidity  equalled  only  by 
their  confidence  and  insensibility,  these  men  and 
others  like  them  sought  to  establish  again  the  old 
tyrannies,  and  believed  that  they  could  restore  a  dead 
system  and  revive  a  vanished  society.  They  utterly 
failed  to  grasp  the  fact  that  where  the  red-hot  plough 
shares  of  the  French  Revolution  had  passed  the  old 
crops  could  never  flourish  again.  The  White  Terror 
swept  over  France,  and  a  little  later  the  Due  Decazes, 
the  only  man  who  understood  the  situation,  was 
driven  from  power  because  he  tried  to  establish  the 
sane  conditions  upon  which  alone  the  Bourbon  mon 
archy  could  hope  to  survive.  The  Holy  Alliance  was 
formed  to  uphold  autocracy  and  crush  out  the  aspi 
rations  of  any  people  who  sought  to  obtain  the  sim 
plest  rights  and  the  most  moderate  freedom.  To  us, 
Webster's  denunciation  of  the  Holy  Alliance  sounds 
like  an  academic  exercise,  designed  simply  to  display 
the  orator's  power,  but  to  the  men  of  that  day  it  had 


SENATOR   HOAR  179 

a  most  real  and  immediate  meaning.  The  quiet 
which  Russia  and  Austria  called  peace  reigned  over 
much  wider  regions  than  Warsaw.  England  cringed 
and  burned  incense  before  the  bewigged  and  padded 
effigy  known  as  "  George  the  Fourth."  France  did 
the  bidding  of  the  dullest  and  most  unforgetting  of 
the  Bourbons.  Any  one  who  ventured  to  criticise  any 
existing  arrangement  was  held  up  to  scorn  and  hatred 
as  an  enemy  of  society,  driven  into  exile  like  Byron 
and  Shelley,  or  cast  into  prison  like  Leigh  Hunt. 

But  the  great  forces  which  had  caused  both  the 
American  and  French  revolutions  were  not  dead. 
They  were  only  gathering  strength  for  a  renewed 
movement,  and  the  first  voices  of  authority  which 
broke  the  deadly  quiet  came  from  England  and  the 
United  States.  When  the  Holy  Alliance  stretched 
out  its  hand  to  thrust  back  the  Spanish  colonies  into 
bondage  Canning  declared  that  he  would  call  in  the 
"  New  World  to  redress  the  balance  of  the  Old/'  and 
Monroe  announced  that  in  that  New  World  there 
should  be  no  further  European  colonization,  and  no 
extension  of  the  monarchical  principle.  Greece  rose 
against  the  Turks,  and  lovers  of  liberty  everywhere 
went  to  her  aid ;  for  even  the  Holy  Alliance  did  not 
dare  to  make  the  Sultan  a  partner  in  a  combination 
which  professed  to  be  the  defender  of  Christianity  as 
well  as  of  despotic  government. 

When  Mr.  HOAR  was  born  the  Greek  revolution 


180  SENATOR   HOAR 

was  afoot,  the  first  stirrings  of  the  oppressed  and 
divided  nationalities  had  begun,  the  liberal  move 
ment  was  again  lifting  its  head  and  preparing  to 
confront  the  intrenched,  uncompromising  forces  of 
the  reaction.  When  he  was  four  years  old  Concord 
heard  of  the  fighting  in  the  Paris  streets  during  the 
three  days  of  July,  and  of  the  fall  of  the  Bourbon 
monarchy.  When  he  was  six  years  old  the  passage 
of  the  Reform  Bill  brought  to  England  a  peaceful  rev 
olution  instead  of  one  in  arms,  and  crumbled  into 
dust  the  system  of  Castlereagh  and  Liverpool  and 
Wellington. 

The  change  and  movement  thus  manifested  were 
not  confined  to  politics.  As  Mr.  HOAR  went  back 
and  forth  to  school  in  the  Concord  Academy  the 
new  forces  were  spreading  into  every  field  of  thought 
and  action.  Revolt  against  conventions  in  art  and 
literature  and  against  existing  arrangements  of  society 
was  as  ardent  as  that  against  political  oppression, 
while  creeds  and  dogmas  were  called  in  question 
as  unsparingly  as  the  right  of  the  few  to  govern 
the  many.  In  England  one  vested  abuse  after  an 
other  was  swept  away  by  the  Reform  Parliament. 
It  was  discovered  that  Shelley  and  Byron,  the  out 
laws  of  twenty  years  before,  and  Keats,  the  despised 
and  rejected  of  critics,  were  among  the  greatest  of 
England's  poets.  Dickens  startled  the  world  and 
won  thousands  of  readers  by  bringing  into  his  novels 


SENATOR   HOAR  181 

whole  classes  of  human  beings  unknown  to  polite  fic 
tion  since  the  days  of  Fielding,  and  by  plunging  into 
the  streets  of  London  to  find  among  the  poor  the 
downtrodden,  and  the  criminal  characters  which  he 
made  immortal.  Carlyle  was  crying  out  against 
venerated  shams  in  his  fierce  satire  on  the  Philos 
ophy  of  Clothes.  Macaulay  was  vindicating  the 
men  of  the  great  rebellion  to  a  generation  which 
had  been  brought  up  to  believe  that  the  Puritans 
were  little  better  than  cutthroats,  and  that  Oliver 
Cromwell  was  a  common  military  usurper.  The 
English  establishment  was  shaken  by  the  Oxford 
movement,  which  carried  Newman  to  Rome,  drove 
others  to  the  extreme  of  scepticism,  and  breathed 
life  into  the  torpid  church,  sending  its  ministers 
out  into  the  world  of  men  as  missionaries  and  so 
cial  reformers. 

In  France,  after  the  days  of  July,  the  romantic 
movement  took  full  possession  of  literature,  and 
the  Shakespeare  whom  Voltaire  rejected  became  to 
the  new  school  the  head  of  the  corner.  The  sacred 
Alexandrine  of  the  days  of  Louis  XIV  gave  way  to 
varied  measures  which  found  their  inspiration  in  the 
poets  of  the  Renaissance.  The  plays  of  Hugo  and 
Dumas  drove  the  classical  drama  from  the  stage ; 
the  verse  of  De  Musset,  the  marvellous  novels  of 
Balzac  were  making  a  new  era  in  the  literature 
of  France. 


182  SENATOR   HOAR 

Italy,  alive  with  conspiracies,  was  stirring  from 
one  end  to  the  other  with  aspirations  for  national 
unity  and  with  resistance  to  the  tyranny  of  Nea 
politan  Bourbons  and  Austrian  Hapsburgs.  Hun 
gary  was  moving  restlessly;  Poland  was  struggling 
vainly  with  her  fetters.  Plans,  too,  for  social  re 
generation  were  filling  the  minds  of  men.  St. 
Simon's  works  had  come  into  fashion.  It  was  the 
age  of  Fourier  and  Proudhon,  of  Bentham  and 
Comte. 

Such  were  the  voices  and  such  the  influences  which 
then  came  across  the  Atlantic,  very  powerful  and  very 
impressive  to  the  young  men  of  that  day,  especially 
to  those  who  were  beginning  to  reflect  highly  and 
seriously  upon  the  meaning  of  life.  And  all  about 
them  in  America  the  same  portents  were  visible. 
Everything  was  questioned.  Men  dreamed  dreams 
and  saw  visions.  There  is  a  broad,  an  impassable 
gulf  between  the  deep  and  beautiful  thought,  the 
mysticism  and  the  transcendentalism  of  Emerson,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  wild  vagaries  of  Miller  and  of 
the  Second  Adventists,  or  the  crude  vulgarity  of 
Joseph  Smith,  on  the  other;  yet  were  they  all  mani 
festations  of  the  religious  cravings  which  had  suc 
ceeded  the  frigid  scepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  the  dull  torpor  of  the  period  of  reaction.  So,  too, 
Brook  Farm  and  the  Oneida  Community  were  widely 
different  attempts  to  put  into  practice  some  of  the 


SENATOR   HOAR  183 

schemes  of  social  regeneration  then  swarming  in  the 
imagination  of  men.  Literature  was  uplifting  itself 
to  successes  never  yet  reached  in  the  New  World.  It 
was  the  period  of  Poe  and  Hawthorne,  of  Longfellow 
and  Lowell,  of  Holmes  and  Whittier.  Bancroft  and 
Prescott  were  already  at  work ;  Motley  was  beginning 
his  career  with  romantic  novels.  And  then  behind 
all  this  new  literature,  all  these  social  experiments, 
all  these  efforts  to  pierce  the  mystery  of  man's  exist 
ence,  was  slowly  rising  the  agitation  against  slavery, 
a  dread  reality  destined  to  take  possession  of  the 
country's  history.  These  influences,  these  voices 
were  everywhere  when  Mr.  HOAR,  a  vigorous,  clever, 
thoughtful  boy  of  sixteen,  left  his  school  at  Concord 
and  entered  Harvard  College  in  1842.  Brook  Farm 
had  been  started  in  the  previous  year ;  the  next 
was  to  witness  Miller's  millennium ;  he  was  half 
way  through  college  when  Joseph  Smith  was  killed 
at  Nauvoo.  In  his  third  year  the  long  battle  which 
John  Quincy  Adams  had  waged  for  nearly  a  decade 
in  behalf  of  the  right  of  petition  and  against  the  slave 
power,  and  which  had  stirred  to  its  depths  the  con 
science  of  New  England,  culminated  in  the  old  man's 
famous  victory  by  the  repeal  of  the  "  gag  rule." 

As  Mr.  HOAR  drew  to  manhood  the  air  was  full  of 
revolt  and  questioning  in  thought,  in  literature,  in 
religion,  in  society,  and  in  politics.  The  dominant 
note  was  faith  in  humanity  and  in  the  perfectibility 


184  SENATOR   HOAR 

of  man.  Break  up  impeding,  stifling  customs,  strike 
down  vested  abuses,  set  men  free  to  think,  to  write, 
to  work,  to  vote  as  they  chose  and  all  would  be  well. 
To  Mr.  HOAR,  with  his  strong  inheritances,  with  the 
powerful  influences  of  his  family  and  home,  the  spirit 
of  the  time  came  with  an  irresistible  appeal.  It  was 
impossible  to  him  to  be  deaf  to  its  voice  or  to  shut 
his  ears  to  the  poignant  cry  against  oppression  which 
sounded  through  the  world  of  Europe  and  America 
with  a  fervor  and  pathos  felt  only  in  the  great  mo 
ments  of  human  history.  But  he  was  the  child  of 
the  Puritans.  Their  elemental  qualities  were  in  his 
blood,  and  the  Puritans  joined  to  the  highest  idealism 
the  practical  attributes  which  had  made  them  in  the 
days  of  their  glory  the  greatest  soldiers  and  statesmen 
in  Europe.  Macaulay,  in  a  well-known  passage,  says 
of  Cromwell's  soldiers  that  — 

"  They  moved  to  victory  with  the  precision  of  machines, 
while  burning  with  the  wildest  fanaticism  of  Crusaders." 

Mr.  HOAR,  by  nature,  by  inheritance,  by  every 
influence  of  time  and  place,  an  idealist,  had  also 
the  strong  good  sense,  the  practical  shrewdness, 
and  the  reverence  for  law  and  precedent  which  were 
likewise  part  of  his  birthright.  He  passed  through 
college  with  distinction,  went  to  his  brother's  office 
for  a  year,  to  the  Harvard  Law  School,  and  thence, 
in  1849,  to  Worcester,  where  he  cast  in  his  fortune 


SENATOR   HOAR  185 

with  the  young  and  growing  city  which  ever  after 
was  to  be  his  home.  But  his  personal  fortunes  did 
not  absorb  him.  He  looked  out  on  the  world  about 
him  with  an  eager  gaze.  As  he  said  in  his  old  age, 

"  Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive.77 

The  profound  conviction  that  every  man  had  a 
public  duty  was  strong  within  him.  The  spirit  of 
the  time  was  on  him.  He  would  fain  do  his  share. 
When  the  liberal  movement  culminated  in  Europe  in 
1848  he  was  deeply  stirred.  When,  a  little  later, 
Kossuth  came  to  the  United  States  the  impression 
then  made  upon  him  by  the  cause  and  the  elo 
quence  of  the  great  Hungarian  sank  into  his  heart 
and  was  never  effaced.  He,  too,  meant  to  do  his  part, 
however  humble,  in  the  work  of  his  time.  But  he 
did  not  content  himself  with  barren  sympathy  for  the 
oppressed  beyond  the  seas,  nor  did  he  give  himself  to 
any  of  the  vague  schemes  then  prevalent  for  the  re 
generation  of  society.  He  turned  to  the  question 
nearest  at  hand,  to  the  work  of  redressing  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  wrong  and  the  sin  of  his  native 
land  —  human  slavery.  He  did  not  join  the  aboli 
tionists,  but  set  himself  to  fight  slavery  in  the  effect 
ive  manner  which  finally  brought  its  downfall  —  by 
organized  political  effort  within  the  precincts  of  the 
Constitution  and  the  laws. 

Mr.  HOAR  had  been  bred  a  Whig.     His  first  vote 


186  SENATOR   HOAR 

in  1847  was  for  a  Whig  governor,  and  Daniel  Webster 
was  the  close  friend  of  his  father  and  brother.  He 
had  been  brought  up  on  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne, 
and  as  a  college  student  he  had  heard  him  deliver 
the  second  Bunker  Hill  oration.  In  that  day  the 
young  Whigs  of  Massachusetts  looked  up  to  Webster 
with  an  adoring  admiration.  They  — 

"  followed  him,  honored  him, 
Lived  in  his  mild  and  magnificent  eye, 
Learned  his  great  language,  caught  his  clear  accents, 
Made  him  their  pattern  to  live  and  to  die." 

But  the  great  command  of  conscience  to  Mr  HOAR 
was  to  resist  slavery,  and  the  test  of  his  faith  was  at 
hand.  He  was  to  break  from  the  dominant  party 
of  the  State.  Webster  was  to  become  to  him  in  very 
truth  "  The  Lost  Leader."  He  was  to  join  with 
those  who  called  the  great  Senator  "  Ichabod,"  and 
not  until  he  himself  was  old  was  he  to  revert  to  his 
young  admiration  of  that  splendid  intellect  and  that 
unrivalled  eloquence.  But  when  the  ordeal  came 
there  was  no  shrinking.  Charles  Allen,  of  Wor 
cester,  amid  derisive  shouts,  announced  at  Phila 
delphia,  after  the  nomination  of  General  Taylor,  that 
the  Whig  party  was  dissolved,  and  Mr.  HOAR  went 
with  him.  After  the  delegates  had  returned  to 
Massachusetts  Mr  HOAR  rendered  his  first  political 
service  by  addressing  and  mailing  a  circular  drawn  by 
his  elder  brother,  E.  Rock  wood  Hoar,  which  invited 


SENATOR   HOAR  187 

the  antislavery  Whigs  to  meet  at  Worcester  and  take 
steps  to  oppose  the  election  of  either  General  Taylor 
or  of  General  Cass,  the  Democratic  candidate.  The 
convention  was  held  in  Worcester  on  June  28, 
became  the  Free  Soil  party,  and  gave  their  support 
to  Van  Buren.  The  result  of  the  movement  nation 
ally  was  to  defeat  the  Democrats  in  New  York,  as 
the  Liberty  party  had  turned  the  scales  against  Clay 
four  years  before.  In  Massachusetts  the  Worcester 
convention  marked  the  appearance  of  a  group  of 
young  men  who  were  to  form  a  new  school  of  states 
men,  and  who  were  destined  to  control  Massachusetts 
and  to  play  a  leading  part  in  guiding  the  fortunes 
of  the  nation  for  forty  years  to  come. 

The  Federalists,  who  had  formed  and  organized 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  who  were 
essentially  constructive  statesmen  of  great  power, 
had  followed  the  men  of  the  Revolution,  and  in  turn 
had  been  succeeded  by  the  Whigs.  Under  the  lead 
of  Webster  and  Choate,  of  Everett  and  Winthrop, 
and  others  hardly  less  distinguished,  the  Whigs  con 
trolled  Massachusetts  for  a  generation.  They  never 
had  seemed  stronger,  despite  Webster's  personal  dis 
content,  than  on  the  eve  of  Taylor's  election.  But 
it  was  to  be  their  last  triumph.  The  men,  mostly 
young,  who  gathered  at  Worcester  were  to  displace 
them  and  themselves  take  and  hold  power  for  nearly 
forty  years.  There  at  Worcester,  with  Samuel  Hoar, 


188  SENATOR   HOAR 

one  of  the  pioneers  of  earlier  days,  presiding,  were 
assembled  the  men  of  the  future.  Charles  Sumner, 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  Henry  Wilson,  E.  R.  Hoar, 
Charles  Allen,  and  Richard  H.  Dana  spoke  to  the 
convention,  while  Palfrey  the  historian,  John  A. 
Andrew,  then  a  young,  unknown  lawyer,  and  Anson 
Burlingame,  although  not  present,  joined  with  and 
supported  them.  These  were  not  only  new  men,  but 
they  represented  a  new  political  school.  The  Whigs, 
inheriting  the  Federalist  doctrines  of  liberal  construc 
tion,  were  essentially  an  economic  party,  devoted  to 
the  industrial  and  material  development  of  the  coun 
try.  The  men  who  supplanted  them  were  primarily 
and  above  all  human-rights  statesmen,  as  befitted  the 
time.  To  them  the  rights  of  humanity  came  first, 
and  all  economic  questions  second.  With  these 
men  and  with  this  school  Mr.  HOAR  united  himself 
heart  and  soul,  swayed  by  the  sternest  and  strong 
est  convictions,  for  which  no  sacrifice  was  too  great, 
no  labors  too  hard.  He  was  perhaps  the  youngest 
of  the  men  destined  to  high  distinction  who  met 
in  Worcester  in  1848 ;  he  was  certainly  the  last  great 
survivor  of  this  remarkable  group  in  the  largest  fields 
of  national  statesmanship. 

Thus,  then,  was  the  beginning  made.  The  next 
step  was  an  unexpected  one.  There  was  a  Free-soil 
meeting  in  Worcester  in  1850.  Charles  Allen,  who 
was  to  speak,  was  late,  and  a  cry  went  up  from  the 


SENATOR   HOAR  189 

impatient  audience  of  "Hoar!"  "Hoar!"  Neither 
father  nor  brother  was  present,  so  Mr.  HOAR  took 
the  platform,  and  speaking  from  the  fulness  of  his 
heart  and  with  the  fervor  of  his  cause,  won  a  success 
which  put  him  in  demand  for  meetings  throughout 
the  county.  The  following  year  he  was  made  chair 
man  of  the  Free-Soil  county  committee,  proved  him 
self  a  most  efficient  organizer,  and  carried  all  but  six 
of  the  fifty-two  towns  in  the  county.  Then,  greatly 
to  his  surprise,  he  was  nominated  for  the  legislature. 
He  accepted,  was  elected,  became  the  leader  of  the 
Free  Soilers  in  the  house,  and  distinguished  himself 
there  by  his  advocacy  of  the  factory  acts  limiting  the 
hours  of  labor,  in  which  Massachusetts  wras  the  pio 
neer.  He  retired  at  the  end  of  the  year  for  which 
he  had  been  chosen.  In  1857  he  was  nominated, 
again  unexpectedly,  to  the  State  senate,  was  elected, 
served  one  year  with  marked  distinction,  and  then 
retired,  as  he  had  from  the  house.  He  had,  indeed, 
no  desire  for  office.  On  coming  to  Worcester  he  had 
been  offered  a  partnership  by  Emory  Washburn,  soon 
after  governor  of  the  State,  and  later  a  professor  in 
the  Harvard  Law  School.  This  connection  brought 
him  at  once  into  one  of  the  largest  practices  in  the 
county,  and  his  partner's  election  to  the  governor 
ship,  which  soon  followed,  gave  him  entire  responsi 
bility  for  the  business  of  the  firm.  He  was  not  only 
very  busy,  but  he  was  devoted  to  his  profession,  for 


190  SENATOR   HOAR 

he  possessed  legal  abilities  of  the  highest  order. 
Yet  he  was  never  too  busy  to  give  his  services  freely 
to  the  great  cause  of  human  rights,  which  he  had 
so  much  at  heart.  He  labored  unceasingly  in  his 
resistance  to  slavery  and  in  building  up  the  Republi 
can  party,  which  during  that  time  was  fast  rising 
into  power,  both  in  State  and  nation. 

It  is  impossible  to  follow  him  through  those  event 
ful  years  when  freedom  and  slavery  clinched  in  a 
death  struggle  far  out  in  Kansas,  and  the  black 
clouds  of  Civil  War  were  gathering  darkly  on  the 
horizon.  But  there  are  two  incidents  of  that  period 
which  illustrate  Mr.  HOAR'S  character  so  strongly 
that  they  can  not  be  passed  over.  In  1854  the 
Know  Nothing  movement  broke  out  with  all  the 
force  of  a  tropical  hurricane.  To  men  painfully  strug 
gling  to  bring  a  great  cause  to  judgment  against  the 
resistance  of  the  old  and  dominant  parties  it  offered 
many  temptations.  The  new  party  was  overwhelm 
ing  in  its  strength ;  it  evidently  could  not  last  indefi 
nitely  ;  it  was  sound  on  the  slavery  question,  and 
it  promised  to  act  as  a  powerful  solvent  and  dis 
integrate  the  old  organizations  which  every  Free 
Soiler  rightly  thought  was  vital  to  their  own  success. 
But  Mr.  HOAR,  unmoved  by  the  storm,  believing  in 
freedom  of  conscience  as  he  believed  in  political  free 
dom,  set  himself  in  stern  opposition  to  a  party  which 
rested  on  the  principle  of  discrimination  and  ostra- 


SENATOR   HOAR  191 

cism  against  all  men  of  a  certain  race  or  of  a  given 
creed.  No  public  clamor  then  or  ever  was  able  to 
sway  him  from  those  ideals  of  faith  and  conduct 
which  were  the  guiding  stars  of  his  life. 

The  other  incident  was  widely  different  and  even 
more  characteristic.  If  there  was  one  thing  more 
hateful  to  Mr.  HOAK  than  another  in  those  days,  it 
was  the  return  of  runaway  slaves  to  the  South  by 
the  authorities  of  Northern  States.  Massachusetts 
was  the  scene  of  some  of  the  worst  examples  of  this 
bad  business,  and  the  wrath  of  the  people  was  deeply 
stirred.  In  1854  a  deputy  marshal  connected  with 
the  work  of  slave  catching  arrived  in  Worcester. 
His  presence  became  known,  and  an  angry  mob,  ut 
terly  uncontrollable  by  the  little  police  force  of  the 
town,  gathered  about  the  hotel.  The  man  was  in 
imminent  danger  and  stricken  with  terror.  No  one 
loathed  a  slave  catcher  more  than  Mr.  HOAR,  but  the 
idealist  gave  way  to  the  lover  of  law  and  ordered  lib 
erty.  Mr.  HOAR  went  out  and  addressed  the  crowd, 
then  gave  his  arm  to  the  terrified  man,  walked  with 
him  down  the  street,  surrounded  by  a  few  friends, 
and  in  this  way  got  him  to  the  station  and  out  of 
the  town,  bruised  by  blows  but  alive  and  in  safety. 

So  the  years  of  that  memorable  time  went  by. 
Mr.  HOAR  worked  diligently  in  his  profession,  rising 
to  the  front  rank  of  the  bar  and  laboring  in  season 
and  out  of  season  in  support  of  the  Republican  party 


192  SENATOR   HOAR 

and  of  the  administration  of  Lincoln  when  the  Civil 
War  came.  He  had  neither  thought  nor  desire  for 
public  life  or  public  office.  He  wished  to  succeed  in 
his  profession,  to  live  quietly  at  home  among  his 
books,  and  he  cherished  the  modest  ambition  of  one 
day  becoming  a  judge  of  the  supreme  court  of  the 
State.  But  it  was  ordered  otherwise.  In  1868 
Mr.  HOAR  went  to  Europe,  worn  out  by  hard  work 
at  his  profession.  There  were  at  the  moment  many 
candidates  for  the  nomination  for  Congress  in  the 
Worcester  district,  and  most  of  them  were  strong  and 
able  men.  In  this  condition  of  affairs  Mr.  HOAR  con 
sented  to  let  some  of  his  friends  bring  his  name  for 
ward,  and  then  took  his  departure  for  Europe.  Travel 
and  rest  brought  back  his  health,  so  that  he  returned 
home  eager  for  his  profession,  and  regretting  that  he 
had  allowed  his  name  to  be  suggested  as  that  of  a 
candidate  for  any  position,  only  to  find  himself  nomi 
nated  for  Congress  on  the  first  ballot  taken  in  the 
convention.  Thus  his  life  in  Washington  began,  with 
no  desire  or  expectation  on  his  part  of  a  service  of 
more  than  one  or  two  terms.  At  the  end  of  his  sec 
ond  term  he  announced  his  intention  of  withdrawing, 
and  was  persuaded  to  reconsider  it.  The  fourth  time 
he  was  obliged  again  to  withdraw  a  refusal  to  run, 
because  it  was  a  year  of  peril  to  the  party.  The  next 
time  the  refusal  was  final,  and  his  successor  was  nom 
inated  and  elected. 


SENATOR   HOAR  193 

His  eight  years  in  the  House  were  crowded  with 
work.  He  began  with  a  very  moderate  estimate  of 
his  own  capacities,  but  his  power  of  eloquent  speech 
and  his  knowledge  and  ability  as  a  lawyer  soon 
brought  him  forward.  When  Mr.  S.  S.  Cox  of 
New  York  sneered  at  him  one  day,  in  debate,  say 
ing  that  "  Massachusetts  had  not  sent  her  Hector 
to  the  field,"  and  Mr.  HOAR  replied  that  there  was  no 
need  to  send  Hector  to  meet  Thersites,  the  House  rec 
ognized  a  power  of  quick  and  sharp  retort,  of  which 
it  was  well  to  beware. 

When  Mr.  HOAR  entered  the  House  Congress  was 
engaged  in  completing  the  work  which  by  the  war 
and  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  had  marked  the 
triumph  of  that  mighty  struggle  for  human  freedom 
and  National  Union  to  which  he  had  given  his  youth 
and  early  manhood.  He  was  therefore  absorbed  in  the 
questions  raised  by  the  reconstruction  policy,  which 
involved  the  future  of  the  race  he  had  hoped  to  free ; 
and  he  labored,  especially  in  the  interests  of  that  race, 
for  the  establishment  of  national  education,  which, 
after  years  of  effort  constantly  renewed,  ultimately 
failed  of  accomplishment.  But  the  Civil  War,  besides 
its  great  triumphs  of  a  Union  preserved  and  a  race  set 
free,  had  left  also  the  inevitable  legacy  of  such  con 
vulsions,  great  social  and  political  demoralization  in 
all  parts  of  the  country  and  in  all  phases  of  public  and 
private  life.  Political  patronage  ran  riot  among  the 


13 


194  SENATOR    HOAR 

offices  and  made  Mr.  HOAR  one  of  the  most  ardent,  as 
he  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  effective,  of  civil- 
service  reformers.  Unhappily,  however,  the  poison 
of  the  time  penetrated  much  higher  in  the  body  poli 
tic  than  the  small  routine  offices  so  sorely  misused 
under  the  "  spoils  system."  It  was  an  era  when  Cab 
inet  officers  and  party  leaders  were  touched  and 
smirched,  and  when  one  Congressional  investigation 
followed  hard  upon  another.  Mr.  HOAR'S  keenness 
as  a  lawyer,  his  power  as  a  cross-examiner,  and  his 
fearless  and  indignant  honesty  caused  the  House  to 
turn  to  him  for  this  work  of  punishment  and  purifi 
cation,  which  was  as  painful  as  it  was  necessary.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  committee  to  investigate  the 
Freedmen's  Bureau,  and  took  part  in  the  report  which 
exonerated  General  Howard.  He  was  one  of  the 
House  managers  in  the  Belknap  trial  and  the  leading 
member  of  the  committee  which  investigated  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad  and  the  scandals  of  the  Credit 
Mobilier. 

But  his  greatest  and  most  distinguished  service  came 
to  him  just  as  his  career  in  the  House  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  The  demoralization  of  the  war,  the  work 
ing  out  of  reconstruction,  the  abnormal  conditions 
which  war  and  reconstruction  together  had  produced, 
culminated  in  1876  in  a  disputed  Presidential  election. 
Into  the  events  of  that  agitated  winter  it  is  needless 
to  enter.  The  situation  was  in  the  highest  degree 


SENATOR   HOAR  195 

perilous,  and  every  one  recognized  that  a  grave  crisis 
had  arisen  in  the  history  of  the  republic.  Finally  an 
electoral  tribunal  was  established  which  settled  the 
controversy  and  removed  the  danger.  Upon  that  tri 
bunal  Mr.  HOAR  was  placed  by  a  Democratic  Speaker 
as  one  of  the  representatives  of  the  House,  and  this 
appointment  alone  was  sufficient  to  fix  his  place  as 
one  of  the  political  leaders  of  the  country.  With  this 
great  and  responsible  task  accomplished,  his  career  in 
the  House  drew  to  a  close.  Yet  even  while  he  was 
thus  engaged  a  new  and  larger  service  came  to  him 
by  his  election  to  the  Senate.  He  was  then,  as  when 
he  entered  the  House,  without  desire  for  public  office. 
He  still  longed  to  return  to  his  library  and  his  profes 
sion,  and  allow  the  pleasures  and  honors  as  well  as  the 
trials  of  public  life  to  pass  by.  But  again  it  was  not 
to  be.  There  was  at  that  time  a  strong  and  deep- 
rooted  opposition  to  the  dominance  of  General  Butler 
in  the  politics  of  Massachusetts,  and  this  opposition, 
determined  to  have  a  Senator  in  full  sympathy  with 
them,  took  up  Mr.  HOAR  as  their  candidate  and, 
without  effort  or  even  desire  on  his  part,  elected  him. 
So  he  passed  from  the  House  to  the  Senate.  He 
entered  the  Senate  a  leader,  and  a  leader  he  remained 
to  the  end,  ever  growing  in  strength  and  influence, 
ever  filling  a  larger  place,  until  he  was  recognized 
everywhere  as  one  of  the  first  of  American  statesmen, 
until  his  words  were  listened  to  by  all  his  countrymen, 


196  SENATOR   HOAR 

until  there  gathered  about   him  the  warm  light  of 
history,  and  men  saw  when  he  rose  in  debate  — 
"  The  past  of  the  nation  in  battle  there." 

Neither  time  nor  the  occasion  permits  me  to  trace 
in  fitting  detail  that  long  and  fine  career  in  the  Sen 
ate.  Mr.  HOAR  was  a  great  Senator.  He  brought 
to  his  service  an  intense  patriotism,  a  trained  intellect, 
wide  learning,  a  profound  knowledge  of  law  and  his 
tory,  an  unsullied  character,  and  great  abilities.  All 
these  gifts  he  expended  without  measure  or  stint  in 
his  country's  service.  His  industry  was  extraordinary 
and  unceasing.  Whatever  he  spared  in  life,  he  never 
spared  himself  in  the  performance  of  his  public  duty. 
The  laws  settling  the  Presidential  succession,  provid 
ing  for  the  count  of  the  electoral  vote,  for  the  final 
repeal  of  the  tenure-of-office  act,  for  a  uniform  system 
of  bankruptcy,  are  among  the  more  conspicuous  mon 
uments  of  his  industry  and  energy  and  of  his  power 
as  a  constructive  lawmaker  and  statesman.  Nor  did 
his  activity  cease  with  the  work  of  the  Senate.  He 
took  a  large  part  in  public  discussion  in  every  polit 
ical  campaign  and  in  the  politics  of  his  own  State. 
He  was  a  delegate  to  four  national  conventions,  a 
leading  figure  in  all,  and  in  1880  he  presided  at  Chi 
cago,  with  extraordinary  power,  tact,  and  success, 
over  the  stormiest  convention,  with  a  single  exception, 
known  to  our  history. 

In  the  Senate  he  was  a  great  debater,  quick  in 


SENATOR   HOAR  197 

retort,  with  all  the  resources  of  his  mind  always  at 
his  command.  Although  he  had  no  marked  gifts  of 
presence,  voice,  or  delivery,  he  was  none  the  less  a 
master  of  brilliant  and  powerful  speech.  His  style 
was  noble  and  dignified,  with  a  touch  of  the  stateli- 
ness  of  the  eighteenth  century,  rich  in  imagery  arid 
allusion,  full  of  the  apt  quotations  which  an  unerring 
taste,  an  iron  memory,  and  the  widest  reading  com 
bined  to  furnish.  When  he  was  roused,  when  his 
imagination  was  fired,  his  feelings  engaged,  or  his 
indignation  awakened,  he  was  capable  of  a  passionate 
eloquence  which  touched  every  chord  of  emotion  and 
left  no  one  who  listened  to  him  unmoved.  At  these 
moments,  whether  he  spoke  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate, 
in  the  presence  of  a  great  popular  audience,  or  in  the 
intimacy  of  private  conversation,  the  words  glowed, 
the  sentences  marshalled  themselves  in  stately  se 
quence,  and  the  idealism  which  was  the  dominant 
note  of  his  life  was  heard  sounding  clear  and  strong 
above  and  beyond  all  pleas  of  interest  or  expediency. 
Thus  we  come  back  to  the  light  which  shone  upon 
his  early  years  and  which  never  failed  him  to  the 
last.  Mr.  HOAR  was  born  in  the  period  of  revolt. 
He  joined  the  human-rights  statesmen  of  that  remark 
able  time.  He  shared  in  their  labors ;  he  saw  the 
once  unpopular  cause  rise  up  victorious  through  the 
stress  and  storm  of  battle ;  he  beheld  the  visions  of 
his  youth  change  into  realities,  and  his  country 


198  SENATOR   HOAR 

emerge  triumphant  from  the  awful  ordeal  of  civil 
war.  He  came  into  public  life  in  season  to  join  in 
completing  the  work  of  the  men  who  had  given  them 
selves  up  to  the  destruction  of  slavery  and  the  preser 
vation  of  the  Union.  But  even  then  the  mighty 
emotions  of  those  terrible  years  were  beginning  to 
subside.  The  seas  which  had  been  running  moun 
tain  high  were  going  down,  the  tempestuous  winds 
before  which  the  ship  of  state  had  driven  for  long 
years  were  dropping  and  bid  fair  to  come  out  from 
another  quarter.  The  country  was  passing  into  a 
new  political  period.  Questions  involving  the  rights 
of  men  and  the  wrongs  of  humanity  gave  place 
throughout  the  world  of  Western  civilization  to  those 
of  trade  and  commerce,  of  tariffs  and  currency  and 
finance.  The  world  returned  to  a  period  when  the 
issues  were  economic,  industrial,  and  commercial,  and 
when  the  vast  organizations  of  capital  and  labor 
opened  up  a  new  series  of  problems.  In  the  United 
States,  as  the  issues  of  the  war  faded  into  the  distance 
and  material  prosperity  was  carried  to  heights 
undreamed  of  before,  the  nation  turned  inevitably 
from  the  completed  conquest  of  its  own  continent  to 
expansion  beyond  its  borders,  and  to  the  assertion  of 
a  control  and  authority  which  were  its  due  among 
the  great  powers  of  the  earth.  Many  years  before 
Mr.  HOAR'S  death  the  change  was  complete,  and  he 
found  himself  a  leader  in  the  midst  of  a  generation 


SENATOR   HOAR  199 

whose  interests  and  whose  conceptions  differed  widely 
from  those  to  which  his  own  life  had  been  devoted. 
He  took  up  the  new  questions  with  the  same  zeal  and 
the  same  power  which  he  had  brought  to  the  old. 
He  made  himself  master  of  the  tariff,  aided  thereto 
by  his  love  of  the  great  industrial  community  which 
he  had  seen  grow  up  about  him  at  Worcester,  and 
whose  success  he  attributed  to  the  policy  of  protec 
tion.  In  the  same  way  he  studied,  reflected  upon, 
and  discussed  problems  of  banking  and  currency  and 
the  conflict  of  standards.  But  at  bottom  all  these 
questions  were  alien  to  him.  However  thoroughly 
he  mastered  them,  however  wisely  he  dealt  with 
them,  they  never  touched  his  heart.  His  inheritance 
of  sound  sense,  of  practical  intelligence,  of  reverence 
for  precedent,  rendered  it  easy  for  him  to  appreciate 
and  understand  the  value  and  importance  of  matters 
involving  industrial  prosperity  and  the  growth  of 
trade ;  but  the  underlying  idealism  made  these  ques 
tions  at  the  same  time  seem  wholly  inferior  to  the 
nobler  aspirations  upon  which  his  youth  was  nur 
tured.  An  idealist  he  was  born,  and  so  he  lived  and 
died.  Neither  scepticism  nor  experience  could  chill 
the  hopes  or  dim  the  visions  of  his  young  manhood. 
He  was  imbued  with  the  profound  and  beautiful  faith 
in  humanity  characteristic  of  that  earlier  time.  He 
lived  to  find  himself  in  an  atmosphere  where  this 
faith  was  invaded  by  doubt  and  questioning. 


200  SENATOR   HOAR 

How  much  that  great  movement,  driven  forward 
by  faith  in  humanity  and  hope  for  its  future,  to 
which  Mr.  HOAR  gave  all  that  was  best  of  his  youth 
and  manhood,  accomplished,  it  is  not  easy  to  esti 
mate.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  results  were  vast 
in  their  beneficence.  But  the  wrongs  and  burdens 
which  it  swept  away  were  known  by  the  sharp 
experience  of  actual  suffering  only  to  the  generations 
which  had  endured  them.  The  succeeding  genera 
tion  had  never  felt  the  hardships  and  oppressions 
which  had  perished,  but  were  keenly  alive  to  all 
the  evils  which  survived.  Hence  the  inevitable 
tendency  to  doubt  the  worth  of  any  great  movement 
which  has  come,  done  its  work,  and  gone,  asserted 
itself;  for  there  are  no  social  or  political  panaceas, 
although  mankind  never  ceases  to  look  for  them  and 
expect  them.  To  a  period  of  enthusiasm,  aspiration, 
and  faith,  resulting  in  great  changes  and  in  great 
benefits  to  humanity,  a  period  of  scepticism  and 
reaction  almost  always  succeeds.  The  work  goes 
on,  what  has  been  accomplished  is  made  sure,  much 
good  is  done,  but  the  spirit  of  the  age  alters. 

The  new  generation  inclined  to  the  view  of  science 
and  history  that  there  were  ineradicable  differences 
between  the  races  of  men.  They  questioned  the 
theory  that  opportunity  was  equivalent  to  capacity ; 
they  refused  to  believe  that  a  people  totally  ignorant 
or  to  whom  freedom  and  self-government  were  un- 


SENATOR   HOAR  201 

known  could  carry  on  successfully  the  complex 
machinery  of  constitutional  and  representative  gov 
ernment  which  it  had  cost  the  English-speaking 
peoples  centuries  of  effort  and  training  to  bring 
forth.  To  expect  this  seemed  to  the  new  time  as 
unreasonable  as  to  believe  that  an  Ashantee  could 
regulate  a  watch  because  it  was  given  to  him,  or  an 
Aruwhimi  dwarf  run  a  locomotive  to  anything  but 
wreck  because  the  lever  was  placed  in  his  hands. 
Through  all  these  shifting  phases  of  thought  and 
feeling  Mr.  HOAR  remained  unchanged,  a  man  of 
'48,  his  ideals  unaltered,  his  faith  in  the  quick  per 
fectibility  of  humanity  unshaken,  his  hopes  for  the 
world  of  men  still  glowing  with  the  warmth  and 
light  of  eager  youth.  And  when  all  is  said,  when 
science  and  scepticism  and  experience  have  spoken 
their  last  word,  the  ideals  so  cherished  by  him  still 
stand  as  noble  and  inspiring  as  the  faith  upon  which 
they  rested  was  beautiful  and  complete.  The  man 
who  steered  his  course  by  stars  like  these  could 
never  lose  his  reckoning  or  be  at  variance  with  the 
eternal  verities  which  alone  can  lift  us  from  the 
earth.  His  own  experience,  moreover,  although 
mingled  with  disappointments,  as  is  the  common 
fate  of  man,  could  but  confirm  his  faith  and  hope. 
He  had  dreamed  dreams  and  seen  visions  in  his 
youth,  but  he  had  beheld  those  dreams  turn  to 
reality  and  those  visions  come  true  in  a  manner 


202  SENATOR   HOAR 

rarely  vouchsafed.  He  had  seen  the  slave  freed  and 
the  Union  saved.  He  had  shared  with  his  country 
men  in  their  marvellous  onward  march  to  prosperity 
and  power.  He  had  seen  rise  up  from  the  revolt 
of  1848  a  free  and  united  Italy,  a  united  Germany, 
a  French  republic,  a  free  Hungary.  He  would  have 
been  a  cynic  and  a  sceptic  indeed  if  he  had  wavered 
in  his  early  faith.  And  so  his  ideals  and  the  tri 
umphs  they  had  won  made  him  full  of  confidence 
and  courage,  even  to  the  end.  He,  too,  could  say: 

"  I  find  earth  not  gray,  but  rosy ; 

Heaven  not  grim,  but  fair  of  hue. 
Do  I  stoop  ?    I  pluck  a  posy. 

Do  I  stand  and  stare  ?     All 's  blue." 

This  splendid  optimism,  this  lofty  faith  in  his 
country,  this  belief  in  humanity  never  failed.  They 
were  with  him  in  his  boyhood ;  they  were  still  with 
him,  radiant  and  vital,  in  the  days  when  he  lay  dying 
in  Worcester.  It  was  all  part  of  his  philosophy  of 
life,  knit  in  the  fibres  of  his  being  and  pervading  his 
most  sacred  beliefs.  To  him  the  man  who  could  not 
recognize  the  limitations  of  life  on  earth  was  as  com 
plete  a  failure  as  the  man  who,  knowing  the  limita 
tions,  sat  down  content  among  them.  To  him  the 
man  who  knew  the  limitations  but  ever  strove  toward 
the  perfection  he  could  not  reach  was  the  victorious 
soul,  the  true  servant  of  God.  As  Browning  wrote  in 
his  old  age,  he,  too,  might  have  said  that  he  was  — 


SENATOR   HOAR  203 

"  One  who  never  turned  his  back,  but  marched  breast  forward, 

Never  doubted  clouds  would  break, 
Never  dreamed,  though  right  were  worsted,  wrong  would 

triumph, 

Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better, 
Sleep  to  wake." 

He  had  an  unusually  fortunate  and  happy  life. 
He  was  fortunate  in  the  knowledge  of  great  work 
done,  happy  in  never  knowing  idleness  or  the  distress 
of  wondering  painfully  how  to  pass  away  the  short 
time  allowed  to  us  here,  or  the  miserable  craving  for 
constant  excitement  so  marked  at  the  present  mo 
ment.  His  vacations  were  filled,  as  were  his  work 
ing  hours.  He  travelled  wisely  and  well,  and  the  Old 
World  spoke  to  him  as  she  does  to  those  only  who 
know  her  history.  He  was  a  lover  of  nature.  He 
rejoiced  in  the  beauties  of  hill  and  stream  and  for 
est,  of  sea  and  sky,  and  delighted  to  watch  the  flight 
of  the  eagle  or  listen  to  the  note  of  the  song-birds, 
in  whose  name  he  wrote  the  charming  petition 
which  brought  them  the  protection  of  the  law  in 
Massachusetts. 

He  was  a  scholar  in  the  wide,  generous,  unspecial- 
ized  sense  of  an  older  and  more  leisurely  age  than 
this.  His  Greek  and  Latin  went  with  him  through 
life,  and  the  great  poets  and  dramatists  and  historians 
of  antiquity  were  his  familiar  friends.  His  knowl 
edge  of  English  literature  was  extraordinary,  —  as 
extensive  as  it  was  minute  and  curious.  His  books 


204  SENATOR   HOAR 

were  his  companions,  an  unfailing  resource,  a  pleas 
ure  never  exhausted.  To  him  history  had  unrolled 
her  ample  page,  and  as  antiquarian  and  collector 
he  had  all  the  joys  which  come  from  research  and 
from  the  gradual  acquisition  of  those  treasures  which 
appeal  to  the  literary,  the  historic,  or  the  artistic  sense. 
Any  man  of  well-balanced  mind  who  is  wedded 
to  high  ideals  is  sure  to  possess  a  great  loyalty  of 
soul.  It  is  from  such  men  that  martyrs  have  been 
made,  —  the  true  martyrs  whose  blood  has  been  the 
seed  of  churches  and  across  whose  fallen  bodies  great 
causes  have  marched  to  triumph.  But  it  is  also 
from  men  of  this  stamp,  whose  minds  are  warped, 
that  the  fanatics,  the  unreasoning  and  mischievous 
extremists  likewise  come,  those  who  at  best  only 
ring  an  alarm  bell,  and  who  usually  are  thoroughly 
harmful,  not  only  to  the  especial  cause  they  cham 
pion,  but  to  all  other  good  causes,  which  they  en 
tirely  overlook.  There  is,  therefore,  no  slight  peril 
in  the  temperament  of  the  thorough-going  idealist, 
unless  it  is  balanced  and  controlled,  as  it  was  with 
Mr.  HOAR,  by  sound  sense  and  by  an  appreciation 
of  the  relation  which  the  idealist  and  his  ideals  bear 
to  the  universe  at  large.  It  was  said  of  a  brilliant 
contemporary  of  Mr.  HOAR,  like  him  an  idealist,  that 
"  if  he  had  lived  in  the  Middle  Ages,  he  would  have 
gone  to  the  stake  for  a  principle  under  a  misappre 
hension  as  to  the  facts."  Mr.  HOAR  would  have  gone 


SENATOR   HOAR  205 

to  the  stake  socially,  politically,  and  physically  rather 
than  yield  certain  profound  beliefs.  But  if  he  had 
made  this  last  great  sacrifice,  he  would  have  known 
just  what  he  was  doing,  and  would  have  been  under 
no  misapprehension  as  to  the  facts. 

Loyalty  to  his  ideals,  moreover,  was  not  his  only 
loyalty.  He  was  by  nature  a  partisan ;  he  could  not 
hold  faiths  or  take  sides  lightly  or  indifferently.  He 
loved  the  great  party  he  had  helped  to  found  in  that 
strongest  of  all  ways,  with  an  open-eyed  and  not 
a  blind  affection.  He  more  than  once  differed  from 
his  party;  he  sometimes  opposed  it  on  particular 
measures ;  he  once,  at  least,  parted  with  it  on  a 
great  national  issue ;  but  he  never  would  leave  it ; 
he  never  faltered  in  its  support.  He  believed  that 
two  great  parties  were  essential  bulwarks  of  responsi 
ble  representative  government.  He  felt  that  a  man 
could  do  far  more  and  far  better  by  remaining  in  his 
party,  even  if  he  thought  it  wrong  in  some  one  par 
ticular,  than  by  going  outside  and  becoming  a  mere 
snarling  critic.  No  man  respected  and  cherished 
genuine  independence  more  than  he,  and  no  man 
more  heartily  despised  those  who  gave  to  hatred, 
malice,  and  all  un charitableness  the  honored  name 
of  independence.  Nothing  could  tear  him  from  the 
great  organization  he  had  helped  and  labored  to 
build  up.  If  any  one  had  ever  tried  to  drive  him  out, 
he  would  have  spoken  to  Republicans  as  Webster 


206  SENATOR   HOAR 

did   to   the  Whigs  in  1842  at  Faneuil   Hall,  when 
he  said : 

"  I  am  a  Whig ;  I  always  have  been  a  Whig,  and  I  always 
will  be  one ;  and  if  there  are  any  who  would  turn  me  out 
of  the  pale  of  that  communion,  let  them  see  who  will  get 
out  first." 

Mr.  HOAR'S  high  ideals  and  unswerving  loyalty 
were  not  confined  to  public  life  and  public  duty. 
He  was  not  of  those  who  raise  lofty  standards  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world  and  then  lower  and  forget  them 
in  the  privacy  of  domestic  life  and  in  the  beaten  way 
of  friendship.  He  was  brought  up  in  days  when 
"  plain  living  and  high  thinking  "  was  not  the  mere 
phrase  which  it  has  since  become,  but  a  real  belief, 
and  to  that  belief  he  always  adhered.  He  cast  away 
a  large  income  and  all  hope  of  wealth  for  the  sake 
of  the  public  service.  He  had  no  faculty  for  saving 
money  and  no  desire  to  attempt  it.  If  he  made 
a  large  fee  in  an  occasional  case,  if  his  pen  brought 
him  a  handsome  reward,  it  all  went  in  books  or 
pictures,  in  the  hospitality  he  loved  to  exercise,  and 
in  the  most  private  charities,  always  far  beyond  his 
means.  He  once  said  that  he  had  been  more  than 
thirty  years  in  public  life  and  all  he  had  accumulated 
was  a  few  books.  But  there  was  no  bitterness,  no 
repining  in  the  words.  He  respected  riches  wisely 
used  for  the  public  good,  but  he  was  as  free  from 
vulgar  admiration  as  he  was  from  the  equally  vulgar 


SENATOR    HOAR  207 

hatred  of  wealth.  He  was,  in  a  word,  simply  in 
different  to  the  possession  of  money —  a  fine  attitude, 
never  more  worthy  of  consideration  and  respect  than 
in  these  very  days. 

His  love  for  his  native  land  was  an  intense  and 
mastering  emotion.  His  country  rose  before  his 
imagination  like  some  goddess  of  the  infant  world, 
the  light  of  hope  shining  in  her  luminous  eyes,  a 
sweet  smile  upon  her  lips,  the  sword  of  justice  in 
her  fearless  hand,  her  broad  shield  stretched  out  to 
shelter  the  desolate  and  oppressed.  Before  that  gra 
cious  vision  he  bowed  his  head  in  homage.  His 
family  and  friends  —  Massachusetts,  Concord,  Har 
vard  College,  Worcester  —  he  loved  and  served  them 
all  with  a  passion  of  affection  in  which  there  was 
no  shadow  of  turning.  His  pride  in  the  Senate,  in 
its  history  and  its  power,  and  his  affection  for  it 
were  only  excelled  by  his  jealous  care  for  its  dignity 
and  its  prerogatives.  He  might  at  times  criticise 
its  actions,  but  he  would  permit  no  one  else  to  do 
so  or  to  reflect  in  his  presence  upon  what  he  regarded 
as  the  greatest  legislative  body  ever  devised  by  man, 
wherein  the  ambassadors  of  sovereign  States  met 
together  to  guard  and  to  advance  the  fortunes  of 
the  republic.  Beneath  a  manner  sometimes  cold, 
sometimes  absent-minded,  often  indifferent,  beat  one 
of  the  tenderest  hearts  in  the  world.  He  had  known 
many  men  in  his  day  —  all  the  great  public  men, 


208  SENATOR   HOAR 

all  the  men  of  science,  of  letters,  or  of  art  —  and  his 
judgments  upon  them  were  just  and  generous,  yet 
at  the  same  time  shrewd,  keen,  and  by  no  means 
over-lenient.  But  when  he  had  once  taken  a  man 
within  the  circle  of  his  affections  he  idealized  him 
immediately  ;  there  was  thenceforth  no  fleck  or  spot 
upon  him,  and  he  would  describe  him  in  glow 
ing  phrases  which  depicted  a  being  whom  the  world 
perhaps  did  not  know  or  could  not  recognize.  It 
was  easy  to  smile  at  some  of  his  estimates  of  those 
who  were  dear  to  him,  but  we  can  only  bow  in  reve 
rence  before  the  love  and  loyalty  which  inspired  the 
thought  —  for  these  are  beautiful  qualities  which  can 
never  go  out  of  fashion. 

He  was  a  fearless  and  ready  fighter ;  he  struck  hard 
and  did  not  flinch  from  the  return.  His  tongue  could 
utter  bitter  words,  which  fell  like  a  whip  and  left  a  scar 
behind,  but  he  cherished  no  resentments,  he  nursed 
no  grudges.  As  the  shadows  lengthened  he  softened, 
and  grew  ever  gentler  and  more  tolerant.  The  caustic 
wit  gave  place  more  and  more  to  the  kindly  humor 
which  was  one  of  his  greatest  attributes.  In  the 
latter  days  he  would  fain  have  been  at  peace  with 
all  men,  and  he  sought  on]y  for  that  which  was  good 
in  every  one  about  him.  He  died  in  the  fulness  of 
years,  with  his  affections  unchilled,  his  fine  intellect 
undimmed.  He  met  death  with  the  calm  courage 
with  which  he  had  faced  the  trials  of  life. 


SENATOR   HOAR  209 

"  He  took  his  shrivelled  hand  without  resistance, 
And  found  him  smiling  as  his  step  drew  near." 

So  he  passed  from  among  us,  a  man  of  noble 
character  and  high  abilities.  He  did  a  great  work  ; 
he  lived  to  the  full  the  life  of  his  time.  He  was 
a  great  Senator  —  a  great  public  servant  laboring 
to  aid  his  fellow-men  and  to  uplift  humanity. 

"  He  has  fought  a  good  fight,  he  has  finished  his  course, 
he  has  kept  the  faith." 

May  we  not  say  of  him,  in  the  words  of  one  of  the 
poets  who  inspired  his  imagination,  in  the  noble 
language  he  so  dearly  loved  : 

Koivov  ro8?  o^os  TTCUTI  TroAmus 


IIoAAuiv  Sajcpvcov  coral  TriruAos 
Tow  yap  jU,eyaAan>  a£tO7rei/0ets 
/x,aAAov 


On  all  this  folk,  both  low  and  high, 

A  grief  has  fallen  beyond  men's  fears. 

There  cometh  a  throbbing  of  many  tears, 

A  sound  as  of  waters  falling  ; 

For  when  great  men  die, 

A  mighty  name  and  a  bitter  cry 

Rise  up  from  a  nation  calling. 

NOTE.  —  This  English  version  of  the  last  chorus  in  the  Hippolytus 
of  Euripides  is  taken  from  the  remarkable  and  very  beautiful  transla 
tion  of  that  tragedy  by  Professor  Murray. 


AMERICAN  HISTORY1 

A  LITTLE  more  than  thirty  years  ago  a  boy 
could  enter  Harvard  College  and  after  four  years 
of  study  graduate  with  the  highest  honors  without 
knowing  of  the  existence  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  or  when  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  framed.  And  what  was  true  of  Harvard 
was  true  of  other  universities  and  colleges.  Ameri 
can  history,  although  sometimes  imperfectly  taught, 
was  not  included  in  the  scheme  of  the  higher  educa 
tion.  Boys  entering  college  were  required  to  know 
something  of  the  "  glory  that  was  Greece  and  the 
grandeur  that  was  Rome/'  but  they  were  permitted 
to  remain  in  complete  ignorance  of  all  that  related 
to  the  history  of  their  own  country.  During  the 
four  years  of  the  college  course  they  had  opportunity 
to  study  the  history  of  England  and  Europe,  but 
never  to  learn  aught  of  the  United  States.  This 
condition  of  education,  which  seems  so  melancholy 
now,  was  really  the  result  of  a  general  attitude  of 
mind  which  was  even  then  passing  away,  but  which 
had  once  been  predominant.  The  usual  opinion  dur- 

1  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  the  editor  and  publishers  of  the 
Reader  Magazine  for  permission  to  reprint  this  article  here. 


AMERICAN    HISTORY  211 

ing  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  seems 
to  have  been  that  there  was  no  American  history 
worth  telling,  apart  from  the  adventures  of  the 
earliest  settlers,  and  the  events  of  the  Revolution, 
which  were  both  connected  so  closely  with  the  history 
of  Europe  that  they  might  fairly  be  deemed  of  some 
importance.  Among  the  most  highly  educated  por 
tion  of  the  community,  the  ignorance  was,  compara 
tively  speaking,  densest,  and  for  the  very  obvious 
reason  that  the  history  of  democracy,  a  new  thing 
then  in  the  world,  was  entirely  different  in  its  attri 
butes  and  conditions  from  the  history  with  which 
everybody  had  been  familiar  for  many  centuries. 
To  conceive  of  a  history  destitute  of  kings  and  nobles 
and  traditions,  unillumined  by  the  splendor  of  a 
court,  without  those  particular  lights  and  shades 
which  the  contrast  of  ranks  alone  can  give,  was  very 
difficult,  because  it  involved  a  new  idea.  Time  is 
always  required  to  enable  people  to  grasp  the  propo 
sition  that  because  a  thing  is  different  from  that  to 
which  they  have  been  accustomed  it  is  not  necessarily 
inferior.  Habit  and  prescription,  although  in  their 
very  nature  never  fully  realized  nor  perfectly  under 
stood,  are  forces  of  enormous  power  among  men  and 
nations. 

American  history  had  also  to  contend  with  femi 
nine  indifference,  and  women  influence  largely  the 
success  of  historic  writings,  as  they  do  that  of  other 


212  AMERICAN   HISTORY 

books.  Macaulay  knew  precisely  the  test  of  popu 
larity  and  wide  circulation  when  he  said  that  he 
wanted  his  history  to  take  the  place  of  the  novel 
on  every  young  lady's  table.  To  suppose,  therefore, 
that  women  would  easily  or  at  once  take  interest 
in  the  seemingly  stern,  gray  story  of  State  building 
and  war,  of  law-making  and  constitutions,  stripped, 
as  it  was  in  America,  of  all  the  glitter  and  romance 
and  refinement  which  clung  about  the  history  of 
monarchies  and  empires  to  which  they  had  always 
been  accustomed,  would  have  been  to  expect  too 
much.  "  Fishers  and  choppers  and  ploughmen " 
constituting  a  State  in  Emerson's  stirring  verse,  were 
very  fine,  but  they  seemed  unlikely  to  have  a  history 
as  interesting  or  to  leave  memoirs  as  entertaining  as 
those  of  the  Courts  of  St.  James  and  Versailles,  which 
educated  Americans  were  wont  to  read.  The  truth 
was  that  the  higher  education  to  which  I  have  al 
luded  was  defective  in  regard  to  the  history  of  the 
United  States  simply  because  that  history  during 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  had  neither 
audience  nor  demand  either  at  home  or  abroad. 
Here  and  there  a  state  historical  society  or  local 
antiquarians  or  the  descendants  of  some  of  the  great 
men  who  fought  the  Revolution  and  made  the  Con 
stitution  collected  material,  gathered  traditions,  or 
edited  letters  and  memoirs,  but  these  efforts  were 
commonly  regarded  as  amiable  idiosyncracies,  quite 


AMERICAN   HISTORY  213 

harmless  but  not  designed  for  general  use.  Nothing 
indeed  illustrates  better  this  attitude  of  mind  toward 
American  history  at  that  time  than  the  fact  that 
Prescott  and  Motley  devoted  their  brilliant  talents 
to  Spain  and  Holland  at  a  period  which  had  no  con 
nection,  or  at  best  a  very  slight  one,  with  the  vast 
region  which  was  one  day  to  be  the  United  States. 
The  truth  was  that  educated  people  did  not  think, 
as  a  rule,  that  the  United  States  had  any  history 
worth  considering,  just  as  they  likewise  thought  that, 
while  we  undoubtedly  had  public  men,  they  were  not 
to  be  seriously  considered  as  statesmen  in  the  sense 
of  European  Ministers  or  English  Parliamentary 
leaders.  They  were  unable  to  realize  that  the  organ 
ization  of  a  nation  and  the  development  of  a  new 
country  by  a  great  democracy  demanded  power, 
ability,  and  statesmanship  of  a  very  high  and  strong 
variety.  It  was  all  different,  it  was  new,  and  it  was 
not  therefore  really  important,  tried  by  the  fashions 
and  the  standards  of  the  Old  World.  The  colonial 
habit  of  mind  died  hard  in  regard  to  American 
history,  as  it  did  in  many  other  ways. 

Yet  even  then  there  were  a  few  men  who  saw 
what  a  field  was  open  to  the  historian  in  the  story 
of  the  United  States  and  of  the  colonies  out  of  which 
the  United  States  had  been  developed.  Richard 
Hildreth,  working  only  on  public  documents,  news 
papers,  printed  books,  pamphlets  and  Congressional 


214  AMERICAN   HISTORY 

debates,  produced  his  history  of  the  United  States 
from  the  earliest  settlements  down  to  his  own  time. 
The  volumes  are  dry,  without  literary  quality  or 
charm,  almost  unreadable  indeed  as  literature,  and 
yet  Hildreth's  work,  considering  his  material,  is  very 
accurate  and  remains  as  a  comprehensive  book  of 
reference  more  valuable  than  many  which  have  suc 
ceeded  it.  Mr.  Bancroft  attained  to  much  wider 
success  and  to  greater  fame.  He  had  the  advantage 
of  an  unoccupied  field  to  cultivate  and  a  smaller  and 
less  hurried  world  to  appeal  to  than  is  the  case  to-day 
and  so  his  labors  achieved  a  success  impossible  now 
to  much  better  work.  He  brought  to  his  task  the 
best  education  and  training  which  the  universities 
of  the  United  States  and  of  Germany  could  afford, 
a  keen  mind,  vigorous  abilities,  an  intense  love  of 
country  and  an  unwearied  industry.  His  history 
is  diffuse ;  there  is  an  inordinate  space  given  to  the 
affairs  of  contemporary  Europe,  and  in  the  earliest 
edition  there  was  much  turgid  writing  in  praise  of 
the  principles  of  democracy  and  the  rights  of  man, 
as  expounded  by  Rousseau  and  Jefferson.  But  Mr. 
Bancroft  rendered,  nevertheless,  an  incalculable  ser 
vice  to  American  history  by  the  vast  mass  of  original 
matter  which  he  brought  to  light  and  use  and  by  the 
manner  in  which  he  gave  unity  and  co-ordination 
to  the  history  of  the  colonies.  So  wide  indeed  were 
his  researches  and  so  extensive  was  his  material  that 


AMERICAN   HISTORY  215 

even  his  long  and  industrious  life  did  not  enable  him 
to  get  beyond  the  period  of  the  Confederation.  To 
the  same  time  we  owe  Mr.  Palfrey's  history  of  New 
England,  a  work  of  the  highest  and  most  admirable 
scholarship,  of  the  best  type  of  historical  work,  but 
somewhat  dry  in  narration  and  necessarily  covering 
only  one  group  of  the  colonies  which  in  the  future 
were  to  form  United  States. 

In  Francis  Parkman,  of  a  later  generation  than 
Bancroft  or  Palfrey,  American  literature  found  its 
first  really  great  historian,  one  fairly  entitled  to  a 
place  in  the  small  group  from  which  Thucydides, 
Tacitus,  and  Gibbon  stand  forth  as  the  pre-eminent 
and  hitherto  unrivalled  exemplars.  Mr.  Parkman 
not  only  had  untiring  industry  and  the  capacity  for 
sifting  evidence  and  marshalling  facts,  drawn  in  many 
cases  from  the  dark  corners  of  forgotten  manuscripts, 
but  he  possessed  also  the  power  of  compression,  the 
reserved  but  vigorous  style,  and  above  all  the  imagi 
nation,  which  enabled  him  to  make  history  live  and 
have  a  meaning,  without  which  life  and  meaning  it 
will  surely  die  and  be  buried  among  incoherent  annals 
and  scientific  catalogues  of  facts.  In  a  series  of  vol 
umes  he  gradually  drew  a  noble  picture  of  the  mighty 
struggle  of  races,  which  ended  in  giving  North 
America  to  the  English-speaking  people.  The  drama 
spread  over  a  continent,  the  actors  who  flitted  across 
the  vast  stage  were  Indians  and  Jesuits,  courtiers  of 


216  AMERICAN   HISTORY 

Louis  XIV,  and  sober  Puritans  of  New  England, 
French  adventurers  and  sturdy  Dutch  traders  from 
the  Mohawk  and  the  Hudson,  all  with  the  wilderness 
as  a  background  and  a  future  beyond  imagination  as 
the  prize  for  which  they  blindly  strove.  Parkman 
made  the  world  comprehend  not  only  that  American 
history  was  important,  but  that  if  it  did  not  have 
the  precise  kind  of  picturesqueness  to  which  that  of 
Europe  had  accustomed  us,  it  had  a  picturesqueness 
of  its  own,  a  light  and  color  and  a  dramatic  force  not 
less  impressive  because  they  differed  in  kind  from 
what  had  gone  before. 

Parkman  began  his  work  under  the  old  conditions 
of  indifference  and  inattention.  When  he  brought 
his  brilliant  volumes  to  an  end  those  conditions  had 
entirely  changed.  The  strong  department  of  Ameri 
can  History  which  has  grown  up  at  Cambridge  in 
the  last  thirty  years  of  the  century  is  merely  a  sign 
of  the  complete  alteration  in  opinion  and  feeling 
which  had  taken  place  not  only  in  the  universi 
ties  and  in  the  schools,  but  in  the  public  mind  after 
the  close  of  the  Civil  War.  Nothing  in  our  earlier 
days,  for  example,  showed  more  conclusively  the 
national  indifference  to  the  past  than  the  reckless 
destruction  of  landmarks  and  historic  buildings.  Now 
every  effort  is  made  to  preserve  all  that  remains 
which  gives  to  past  events  a  local  habitation.  Amer 
icans  have  learned,  too  late  unfortunately  in  many 


AMERICAN   HISTORY  217 

instances,  that  the  fields  and  the  woods,  the  buildings 
and  the  streets,  which  have  been  the  scenes  of  mem 
orable  events,  have  not  only  inestimable  worth  his 
torically  and  sentimentally,  but  that  they  are  also 
pecuniarily  valuable,  to  take  a  very  practical  view,  to 
any  community  lucky  enough  to  possess  them. 

In  the  same  way  books  ranging  from  the  most  ex 
tensive  histories  to  antiquarian  monographs,  rich  in 
minute  learning  upon  some  single  incident,  have  mul 
tiplied  almost  beyond  belief.  Biographies,  compila 
tions  of  essays  by  specialists,  general  histories  and 
manuals  of  all  sorts  have  been  duplicated  and  re 
duplicated  until  we  seem  in  danger  almost  of  losing 
sight  of  the  city  on  account  of  the  number  of  houses 
which  cut  off  our  view.  The  whole  of  our  history, 
from  the  first  voyage  of  Columbus  to  the  last  admin 
istration  at  Washington,  has  been  examined  and 
written  about  in  some  fashion.  In  the  old  days  the 
period  between  the  landings  at  Plymouth  and  James 
town  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  that 
which  stretched  forward  from  the  surrender  at  York- 
town  might  have  been  labelled,  like  portions  of  the 
maps  so  familiar  a  generation  ago,  the  "  Great  Ameri 
can  Desert."  And  people  dwelt  contented  with  their 
"  Desert  "  and  their  ignorance.  But  the  settlements 
have  spread,  and  as  they  spread  have  subdued  and 
conquered.  "  The  Great  American  Desert "  is  no 
more ;  irrigation  threatens  its  last  stronghold,  and 


218  AMERICAN   HISTORY 

the  unopened  tracts  of  the  history  of  the  United  States 
have  all  been  roamed  over  and  explored.  Most  of 
the  exploration  and  examination  has  resulted  merely 
in  what  is  so  dear  to  the  purely  scientific  historian, 
vast  masses  of  catalogued  facts  where  literature  is 
excluded,  and  one  fact  is  just  as  good  and  important 
as  any  other,  simply  because  it  is  a  fact.  These 
heaps  of  information,  some  of  it  valueless,  much  of  it 
undigested,  still  only  partly  assorted,  are  the  neces 
sary  conditions  for  real  history  written  by  one  capable 
and  understanding  man,  endowed  with  the  historic 
imagination  as  distinct  from  the  huge  aggregations 
of  special  articles,  immensely  valuable  as  books  of 
reference,  but  having  the  same  relation  to  history  in 
its  highest  sense  that  the  English  dictionary  bears  to 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare  or  the  verse  of  Milton.  Out 
of  this  mass  of  material  thus  fervently  and  indiscrim 
inately  collected  in  the  last  forty  years  have  come  two 
histories  of  the  highest  type  in  scholarship,  research, 
and  original  thought,  —  Mr.  Henry  Adams's  "  History 
of  the  United  States  During  the  Administrations  of 
Jefferson  and  Madison,"  and  that  of  Mr.  Rhodes  cov 
ering  the  period  subsequent  to  the  Compromise  of 
1850.  In  addition  to  these  we  have  many  excel 
lent  biographies  and  monographs,  as  well  as  some 
admirable  presentations  and  brilliant  pictures  of  cer 
tain  epochs  and  movements  like  those  of  Mr.  Fiske 
and  Mr.  McMaster,  which  are  read  by  every  one  and 


AMERICAN   HISTORY  219 

which  are  even  more  necessary  than  the  highly  scien 
tific  catalogues,  stripped  according  to  rule  of  all 
beauty  of  style  and  all  human  interest,  and  which  are 
read  by  no  one.  To  have  brought  so  much  pure  gold 
as  this  out  of  the  incalculable  mass  of  "  huddling 
silver  little  worth  "  is  highly  creditable  to  American 
letters  and  American  history.  It  is  an  excellent  record, 
not  bettered  elsewhere  in  the  same  period  either  in 
form  or  in  the  net  contribution  to  human  knowledge, 
and  to  the  comprehension  of  the  meaning  of  man 
upon  earth. 

Historians  and  learned  societies,  antiquarians,  and 
biographers,  however,  cannot  make  history  unless  the 
material  for  it  exists,  nor  can  they  by  their  efforts 
alone  develop  from  nothing  a  real  interest  in  it  among 
the  people  at  large.  The  popular  feeling  which 
creates  the  interest  and  manifests  itself,  not  merely 
in  the  sale  of  histories  and  biographies,  but  by  the 
enthusiasm  shown  in  the  celebration  of  local  anni 
versaries,  in  numberless  addresses,  usually  forgotten 
at  once,  except  in  the  town  or  village  commemorated, 
in  the  passion  for  genealogies  and  family  histories, 
in  the  preservation  and  erection  of  monuments, 
springs  from  causes  deep  down  among  the  people 
themselves.  This  activity  and  this  earnestness  in  all 
things  pertaining  to  the  past  are  sound  and  whole 
some,  and  also  full  of  meaning,  (it  is  a  commonplace 
to  say  that  a  people  which  cares  nothing  for  its  past 


220  AMERICAN   HISTORY 

has  no  present  and  deserves  no  future.  But  it  is  not 
quite  so  obvious  that  widespread  interest  in  history 
is  the  proof  of  national  consciousness  and  of  the  abid 
ing  sense  that  a  nation  has  come  to  its  place  in  the 
world. 

While  we  looked  to  Europe  for  all  our  inspiration 
in  art  and  letters,  in  thought  and  in  politics,  it  was 
not  to  be  expected  that  we  should  consider  our  own 
doings  of  much  consequence  or  worthy  of  a  serious 
place  in  history.  Nor  were  those  doings  in  them 
selves  of  much  importance,  for  colonies  are  mere 
appendages,  and  what  chiefly  concerns  mankind  is 
the  tree,  not  the  dependent  shoots  which  push  up 
from  spreading  roots.  The  history  of  the  American 
colonies  intrinsically  was  not  very  important  nor, 
apart  from  a  certain  air  of  adventure  and  rude  pic- 
turesqueness,  very  generally  interesting.  But  when 
the  colonies  became  an  independent  State  the  case 
altered  at  once.  It  became  important  to  know  and 
understand  the  origin  and  the  past  of  the  new  nation 
in  all  its  details.  The  ways  of  life,  the  habits  and 
customs  of  the  tribes  which  wandered  in  the  forests 
of  Scandinavia  and  Germany  are  not  in  themselves 
very  valuable,  and  are  certainly  not  entertaining. 
But  research  exhausts  itself,  and  wisely,  too,  in  the 
effort  to  find  the  minutest  facts  which  shall  throw 
light  upon  the  origin  and  history  of  the  people  from 
whom  have  come  not  only  the  dominant  races  of 


AMERICAN    HISTORY  221 

Western  Europe,  but  the  Western  civilization  which 
has  crossed  oceans  and  subjugated  continents.  To 
take  a  concrete  example,  the  island  of  Jamaica,  now 
and  always  a  dependent  colony,  is  historically  negli 
gible,  but  the  little  State  of  Rhode  Island  deserves  the 
careful  attention  of  the  historian  because  of  her  part 
and  influence  in  founding,  making,  and  guiding  a 
nation. 

Many  years,  however,  passed  before  we  emerged 
wholly  from  the  colonial  condition.  Long  after  we 
had  become  independent  politically,  the  old  colonial 
habits  of  thought,  as  strong  as  they  were  impalpable, 
clung  fast  about  us.  Only  step  by  step  did  we  shake 
off  the  provincial  spirit  and  rid  ourselves  of  the  bated 
breath  of  the  colonists.  We  did  not  come  to  a  full 
national  consciousness  until  we  had  passed  through 
the  awful  trial  of  the  Civil  War.  Then  we  realized 
what  we  were,  and  the  trembling  deference  to  foreign 
opinion,  the  sensitive  outcry  against  foreign  criticism, 
as  well  as  the  uneasy  self-assertion  and  bragging 
which  accompanied  them,  fell  from  us  as  the  burden 
fell  from  the  shoulders  of  Christian.  There  was  still 
much  to  do,  but  the  old  colonial  habit  of  mind  was 
shattered  beyond  recovery.  It  lingered  on  here  and 
there,  it  dies  hard,  but  it  is  dying,  and  now  is  nearly 
dead. 

-With  the  coming  of  a  true  national  consciousness 
came  the  interest  in  the  past  and  in  history.     It  was 


222  AMERICAN   HISTORY 

apparent  that  the  United  States  was  one  of  the  most 
considerable  facts  of  the  age,  when  its  consolidation 
had  once  been  effected  and  all  peril  of  dissolution  had 
departed  with  the  crushing  out  of  the  forces  which 
aimed  at  separation.  Anything  which  helped  to  ex 
plain  this  fact  became,  therefore,  of  intense  interest. 
As  the  years  passed  on,  the  fact  grew  larger.  In  due 
time  a  not  very  serious  war  revealed  to  the  world 
what  had  happened,  and  it  appeared  that  the  fact 
known  as  the  United  States  had,  and  was  destined  to 
have  in  many  various  ways,  a  strong  and  increasing 
influence  upon  all  the  other  facts  known  as  the  nations 
of  the  earth.  Thus  did  it  become  more  than  ever 
obvious  that  the  explanation  of  the  United  States  to 
be  found  in  the  history  of  the  past  four  centuries  was 
worthy  of  the  best  efforts  of  the  historian.  The  pride 
in  what  the  country  is  spurs  men  on  to  pride  in  all 
who  shared  in  making  the  nation.  From  the  abor 
tive  attempts  of  the  earliest  adventurers,  from  the 
feeble  settlements  clinging  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard, 
on  through  the  confused  and  seemingly  petty  history 
of  the  colonies,  and  of  the  scattered  people  and  small 
States  struggling  out  of  revolution  and  dissension  to  a 
larger  national  life,  to  those  who  saved  the  Union 
from  disintegration,  and  still  on  to  those  who  have 
carried  her  power  forward  to  the  Pacific,  and  made  a 
great  nation  where  there  was  none  before,  —  all  alike 
have  come  to  possess  deep  meaning  and  importance. 


AMERICAN    HISTORY  223 

Hence  the  rise  of  American  history,  and,  what  is 
more  important,  of  the  general  interest  in  that  his 
tory,  which  may  be  trusted  to  separate  the  wheat 
from  the  chaff,  and  give  us  not  only  knowledge,  but 
also  something  worthy  to  take  a  place  in  literature 
by  the  manner  in  which  the  knowledge  is  communi 
cated  to  men. 

Nearly  thirty  years  ago  one  of  the  greatest  writers 
of  the  nineteenth  century  said, "  Le  monde  est  entraine 
par  un  penchant  irresistible  vers  rAmericanisme,  vers 
le  regne  de  ce  que  tous  comprennent  et  apprecient."  1 
But  that  which  the  penetrating  intellect  of  Renan 
detected  so  soon  after  our  Civil  War,  the  influence 
the  United  States  was  destined  to  have  upon  the  rest 
of  the  world,  was  not  perceived  by  ordinary  observers. 
Whether  Renan  was  right  or  wrong  about  the  nature 
of  the  influence  is  not  important.  The  point  is  that 
he  saw  it  coming  and  called  attention  to  what  others 
were  for  many  years  wholly  unable  to  see  or  even 
to  imagine.  Now,  however,  signs  are  not  wanting 
that  the  inhabitants  of  England  and  Europe  are  be 
ginning  to  think  that  the  history  of  a  people  who  have 
made  a  great  and  powerful  nation,  to  whom  the  future 
in  large  measure  belongs,  is  worthy  of  consideration, 
and  that  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  know  something  of 
the  men  who  have  led  and  guided  that  people  in  the 

1  Preface  to  "Melanges  d'histoire  et  de  voyages,"  par  Ernest 
Renan.     Paris.     1878. 


224  AMERICAN   HISTORY 

past,  and  who  lead  and  guide  them  now.  There  is 
evident,  even  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  a 
dawning  idea  that  this  knowledge  may  be  perhaps 
as  useful  and  even  as  illuminating  as  to  trace  the 
fortunes  of  some  petty  and  wholly  effaced  Italian  city 
despot  or  the  personal  intrigues  of  forgotten  courtiers. 
It  has  been  a  great  and  interesting  change.  There 
is  no  longer  danger  that  the  history  of  the  United 
States  will  be  neglected.  We  are  much  more  likely 
to  suffer  from  too  much  zeal  and  from  useless  accu 
mulations  and  needless  repetitions.  But  as  Webster 
said  that  in  his  profession  he  always  found  there  was 
plenty  of  room  at  the  top,  so  is  there  still  ample 
opportunity,  in  many  periods  and  phases  of  American 
history  yet  untouched,  for  the  rare  historian  who,  in 
the  largest  and  finest  sense,  can  write  history  which 
shall  rest  upon  learning  and  also  become  a  part  of 
the  literature  of  mankind. 


CERTAIN   PRINCIPLES   OF   TOWN 
GOVERNMENT  l 

"  GREAT  nations,"  says  Ruskin  in  the  preface  to 
"St.  Mark's  Rest/'  "write  their  autobiographies  in 
three  manuscripts,  —  the  book  of  their  deeds,  the  book 
of  their  words,  and  the  book  of  their  art."  We  of  the 
United  States  have  only  just  begun  to  write  a  little 
in  the  third  of  these  volumes,  but  we  may  console 
ourselves  thereon  with  two  reflections :  first,  that 
States  ripen  long  and  slowly  (it  took  Venice  seven 
hundred  years)  before  they  develope  a  beautiful  and 
original  art ;  and  secondly,  that  we  have  already  here 
and  there  a  building  like  the  Capitol  at  Washington 
which  will  serve  to  tell  our  posterity  that  the  noble 
and  permanent  in  architecture  was  at  least  known 
among  us  in  our  first  century  of  national  existence. 

In  the  second  volume,  the  book  of  words,  much 
more  has  been  written.  The  total  gift  may  not  yet 
be  large,  but  we  have  made  a  real  addition  to  the  lit 
erature  of  the  English-speaking  peoples  and  we  can 
show  three  or  four  shining  names  which  are  fixed 
stars  in  the  literature  of  the  world.  Still  we  cannot 

1  An  address  delivered  at  the  celebration  of  the  two  hundredth  anni 
versary  of  the  establishment  of  the  Town  of  Brookline,  Massachusetts. 

15 


226    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

as  yet  read  long  in  our  second  volume.  Letters,  like 
art,  take  much  time  for  full  development ;  even  more 
time  is  needed  to  obtain  the  richness  and  variety  so 
necessary  to  a  really  great  literature,  which  cannot, 
like  a  man,  be  satisfied,  still  less  complete,  with  only 
a  "  single  book."  And  so  we  come  back  to  Ruskin's 
first  volume,  that  which  all  nations  must  write  and 
write  well  before  they  can  hope  to  bring  forth  either 
a  literature  or  an  art  which  shall  be  at  once  their 
own  and  also  worthy  of  the  world's  considerate  ad 
miration.  Our  autobiography  as  written  in  our  book 
of  deeds  reaches  back  over  only  three  hundred  years, 
but,  nevertheless,  many  pages  have  been  filled  be 
cause  the  deeds  have  been  many  and  of  grave  import 
to  mankind,  as  we  and  the  rest  of  the  world  are  just 
beginning  rightly  to  understand. 

Among  the  deeds  of  serious  meaning  and  result  so 
inscribed  in  the  indelible  past,  that  of  founding  and 
organizing  these  New  England  towns  in  the  forest 
clearing  or  by  the  sounding  sea  was  one  of  the  most 
considerable,  a  fact  growing  daily  more  evident  to 
those  who  turn  from  the  roar  of  the  torrent  of  Ameri 
can  life  to  seek  in  the  stillness  of  the  days  that  are 
dead  the  sources  of  the  mighty  stream.  These  re 
curring  celebrations  exhibit  not  only  the  proper  pride 
in  home  and  birthplace  which  all  men  should  possess, 
but  also  show  by  their  very  multiplication  a  wide 
spread  feeling  that  the  New  England  town  deserves 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT     227 

attention  as  an  example  of  a  system  which  has  had  a 
profound  effect  on  the  history,  the  government,  and 
the  political  thoughts  and  habits  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States.     This  due  attention  may  be  rendered 
in  two  ways ;  either  by  setting  forth  in  scrupulous  de 
tail  the  history  of  each  town,  or  through  the  consider 
ation  of  the  features  which  are  common  to  all  the 
towns  alike  and  therefore  part  of  the  general  devel 
opment  of  the  State  and  country.     Both  are  important, 
for  it  is  a  serious  mistake  to  make  light  of  local  his 
tory  because  it  moves  in  a  restricted  field  and  of  ne 
cessity  deals  with  small  things.     The  value  of  local 
history  depends  upon   the  way  in  which   it  is   re 
garded  and  upon  the  results  which  flowed  from  it. 
Montaigne  says  that  one  secret  of  happiness  is  to  in 
terest  one's  self  in  the  life  about  one  and  that  to  the 
philosopher  a  village  fulfils  this  purpose  as  well  as  a 
capital  city,  because  the  great  book  of  human  nature 
lies  open  alike  in  both.     The  real  test,  however,  is  in 
the  results.     Events  intrinsically  unimportant  assume 
a  vast  significance  if  they  mark  the  beginnings  of 
empires.      The  brawls  and  quarrels  of  two  aborigi 
nal  tribes  planted,  let  us  imagine,  upon  Corey's  Hill 
and   upon   the  opposite  slope  where  the  Aspinwall 
house  stood  would  be  devoid  of  any  human  interest 
now   because    the    Indians    founded    and   developed 
nothing.     But  if  you  will  shift  the  scene  to  another 
country,  call  the  two  hills  Palatine  and  Quirinal,  and 


228    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

the  aboriginal  tribes  who  occupied  them  Romans  and 
Sabines,  then  the  brawls  and  fights  assume  an  intense 
interest.  The  little  valley  for  which  they  contended 
in  those  dim,  forgotten  days  became  the  Roman 
Forum,  the  spring  around  which  they  fought  was  the 
Fountain  of  Juturna,  where  the  great  twin  brethren 
watered  their  horses  after  the  battle  of  Lake  Regillus, 
and  the  agreement  which  the  fighting  tribes  then 
reached  was  the  foundation  of  the  empire  of  Rome. 
Around  those  obscure  events  and  misty  figures  tradi 
tion  has  gathered  thickly.  They  have  formed  the 
theme  of  the  poet,  the  painter,  and  the  sculptor  in  all 
the  generations  since.  The  learning  of  the  world  has 
sought  out  everything  which  could  throw  light  upon 
that  dim  region  of  history  while  archaeology  laying 
bare  forgotten  ruins  sunk  deep  in  earth  has  labored 
patiently  to  reconstruct  that  vanished  time,  and  has 
proved  in  these  later  days  the  reality  of  men  and 
events  which  earlier  students  had  relegated  to  the 
domain  of  myth  and  fable.  Those  events  remain  as 
inherently  insignificant  in  themselves  as  they  were  in 
the  beginning,  but  that  which  came  from  them  gives 
them  a  meaning  and  an  interest  beyond  comparison. 
So  is  it  here.  The  history  of  the  towns  and  counties 
of  Massachusetts  and  Virginia  and  of  all  the  colonies 
which  fringed  the  Atlantic  sea-board  seems  trifling 
enough  unless  we  lift  our  eyes  and  look  out  from  it 
at  the  United  States  to-day.  Then  this  story  of  the 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT     229 

days  of  small  things  takes  on  an  importance  which 
may  well  give  us  pause  and  which  bids  us  search  for 
the  deeper  meanings  it  contains.  You  may  find 
those  meanings  here  as  in  our  other  New  England 
towns,  for  there  is  a  great  similarity  in  the  history, 
the  character,  and  the  ruling  principles  of  them  all. 
The  same  spirit  inspired  every  one  of  them  in  the 
early  days.  Here  as  elsewhere  the  space  of  ground 
upon  which  the  town  stands  becomes  visible  to  history, 
and  detaches  itself  from  the  rest  of  the  earth  by  the 
appearance  of  the  Indians  in  the  white  man's  records. 
"  Ten  Sagamores  and  many  Indians  "  are  mentioned 
in  connection  with  this  spot  in  1633.  Their  dark 
figures  show  out  for  a  moment  against  the  background 
of  hills  and  forests  and  then  vanish,  precursors  of  the 
fate  of  their  race  throughout  a  continent.  Then  we 
hear  of  a  little  hamlet  by  the  Muddy  River  attached 
to  the  jurisdiction  of  Boston,  where  in  1686  the 
strong  love  of  local  self-government  made  itself  felt 
and  a  degree  of  independence  was  obtained.  Then 
the  village  returns  to  Boston  and  at  last  in  1705  the 
spirit  of  independence  prevails,  and  the  town  is  estab 
lished,  giving  us  the  anniversary  which  we  commemo 
rate  to-day.  It  was  the  eighty-third  community  in 
Massachusetts  which  thus  attained  to  independence 
and  self-government  in  1705,  "a  poor  little  town" 
as  it  described  itself  in  1714,  when  it  could  not  pay 
for  a  representative  in  the  Great  and  General  Court 


230    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

because  it  had  just  built  a  church.  But  the  right 
qualities  were  all  there  among  that  handful  of  farm 
ers.  The  "  poor  little  town "  grew  and  prospered. 
It  did  not  fail  when  the  crises  came ;  it  took  its  share 
in  the  Revolution,  in  the  formation  of  the  Union 
of  States,  and  in  the  great  Civil  War.  No  longer 
poor  in  1860,  but  rich  also  in  much  better  things  than 
money  it  sent  out  thirty-four  officers  and  seven  hundred 
and  twenty  men,  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  more  than 
its  quota,  to  fight  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 
Yet  it  still  remains  a  town.  Long  ago  fitted  in  wealth 
and  population  to  become  a  city,  able  too,  at  any  mo 
ment,  to  become  an  integral  and  important  part  of  the 
great  capital  to  which  it  had  been  attached  in  its  days  of 
infancy,  Brookline  still  chooses  to  remain  a  town  and 
to  cling  to  town  government.  This  unusual  fact 
very  forcibly  suggests  that  nothing  could  be  more 
meet  on  this  day  than  to  consider  carefully  what 
some  at  least  of  those  principles  and  meanings  of 
town  governments  are  to  which  Brookline  has  so 
long  been  loyal. 

v/  I  shall  venture  to  follow  the  path  to  which  Brook- 
line's  preference  for  the  town  system  in  this  age  of 
multiplying  cities  invites  me,  and  I  do  it  the  more 
willingly  because  it  is  not  for  me  to  trace  now  the 
history  of  the  town  or  try  to  draw  a  picture  of  its 
past  and  its  people.  That  must  be  the  work  of  some 
one  who  is  to  the  manner  born,  even  if  time  and 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    231 

space  did  not  alike  forbid  me  to  attempt  it.  To  him 
who  speaks  here  briefly  on  this  day  of  commemora 
tion  it  is  only  permitted  to  glance  at  the  larger  as 
pects  of  the  subject,  at  those  which  are  typical  in  the 
past  and  which  if  understood  aright  should  contain 
lessons  for  the  present.  Here  we  ought  surely  to 
find  something  which  will  help  us  to  comprehend  the 
great  country  which  we  have  built  up  from  these  lit 
tle  coast  settlements  obscurely  begun  nearly  three 
centuries  ago.  I  say,  "help  us  to  understand  our 
country,"  for  without  a  right  understanding  of  facts 
we  cannot  have  veracity  of  mind  or  look  facts  in  the 
face,  and  without  veracity  of  mind  and  a  clear-eyed 
vision  of  the  facts  about  us  no  success,  certainly  no 
success  worth  having  is  even  remotely  possible. 

We  brought  to  this  new  world  and  planted  here 
the  habits  and  traditions  of  an  old  civilization;  but 
a  transplanted  civilization  in  a  virgin  soil  is  neces 
sarily  very  different  from  the  same  civilization  in  the 
regions  where  it  was  born  and  then  developed  in  the 
slow  process  of  the  centuries.  Much  that  it  had  in 
the  old  world  was  inevitably  lost  in  the  new.  Much 
also  in  crossing  the  ocean  suffered  a  sea  change  and 
took  on  new  forms  when  it  was  once  rooted  and 
began  to  grow  and  flourish  in  a  slowly  conquered 
wilderness.  The  trouble  with  most  of  the  criticism 
and  with  much  else  that  has  been  written  about 
the  United  States  both  at  home  and  abroad  is  that 


232    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

it  has  been  devoted  to  telling  us  what  we  have  lost 
by  our  migration  and  what  is  wanting  here  as  com 
pared  with  Europe,  instead  of  considering  what  we 
have,  what  we  are,  and  what  we  should  strive  and 
hope  to  be.  Such  a  method  of  criticism  or  of  obser 
vation  is  inept  as  well  as  negative.  To  say  that 
a  newly  transplanted  civilization  is  in  some  respects 
crude  or  to  point  out,  as  I  saw  done  recently,  that 
New  Hampshire  lacks  the  picturesqueness  conveyed 
by  the  presence  of  parsons  and  squires,  leads  nowhere, 
reiterates  truisms,  and  teaches  absolutely  nothing. 
It  is  impossible  to  proceed  by  negations  in  describing 
a  great  nation,  in  discussing  its  history  or  in  seeking 
to  explain  its  meaning.  Moreover,  whether  a  given 
individual  likes  or  dislikes  the  country  and  its  people 
is  a  matter  of  personal  taste,  and  of  no  possible  con 
sequence  except  to  the  individual  himself.  The  United 
States  is  a  great  fact  in  the  world  to-day,  replete  with 
force  and  pregnant  with  vast  possibilities.  What  does 
it  mean,  socially  and  politically,  economically  and 
artistically,  this  great  nation  of  ours,  ever  becoming 
more  powerful  and  influential  ?  What  does  it  all 
portend  ?  Whither  are  we  going ;  along  what  roads 
should  we  travel,  and  what  guides  should  we  follow  ? 
What  are  the  perils  to  be  shunned,  what  the  aspira 
tions  which  we  should  strive  to  fulfil  ?  These  ques 
tions,  which  go  to  the  very  root  of  the  matter,  cannot 
be  answered  by  saying  very  wisely  that  we  have  no 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    233 

castles  or  no  parsons  or  no  squires,  any  more  than  we 
can  regulate  life  in  the  tropics  or  make  it  practicable 
by  merely  declaring  that  the  tropics,  obviously  ill 
arranged,  have  unfortunately  neither  snow  nor  frost. 
That  which  is  needed  is  patient  examination  of  what 
exists  and  careful  study  of  the  past  from  which  the 
present  has  come.  In  my  opinion  much  may  be  learned 
from  the  history  of  our  New  England  towns  which 
will  help  us  to  understand  and  thereby  aid  us  to 
succeed  in  the  conduct  of  this  great  nation,  in  whose 
upbuilding  these  towns  have  been  a  potent  factor. 
The  New  England  town  as  established  here  in  the 
seventeenth  century  was  a  reversion  to  social,  politi 
cal,  and  economic  forms  which  our  remote  ancestors 
brought  out  from  the  German  forests  and  which  had 
been  gradually  lost  through  feudalism,  through  the 
rise  of  the  trade  guilds  in  the  towns,  and  through  the 
later  development  of  despotic  monarchies  in  Europe 
and  in  a  less  degree  in  England.  We  find  here  the 
town-meeting,  the  common  land,  the  woodland,  the 
right  of  pasture,  exact  reproductions  of  the  mark- 
land,  the  ploughland,  and  the  moot  of  the  Saxon 
tun  or  hundred.  It  seems  almost  as  if  the  mere 
presence  of  the  American  wilderness  caused  these 
exiled  English  to  revive  unconsciously  the  habits  of 
their  remote  forefathers  in  the  German  forests.  But 
this  New  England  plan  of  local  government  by  the 
direct  voice  of  the  people  gathered  in  public  meeting 


234    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

can  claim  kinship  with  systems  much  older  than 
any  which  their  Teutonic  ancestry  is  able  to  furnish. 
The  town-meeting  is  closely  akin  to  the  comitia 
of  Rome  and  to  the  Grecian  agora.  Rome  started 
with  a  government  by  the  direct  voice  of  the  citizens, 
and  such  was  also  the  theory  and  practice  of  Athens. 
Greece  planted  her  colonies  in  every  island  and  along 
all  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean,  but  they  remained 
isolated  and  separate,  they  never  could  really  unite, 
and  even  the  conquests  and  the  genius  of  Alexander 
the  Great  failed  to  consolidate  and  establish  a  Gre 
cian  Empire.  Rome,  on  the  other  hand,  cemented 
and  built  up  her  empire,  but  her  direct  government 
by  the  people  and  then  her  republican  forms  were 
gradually  sacrificed  and  finally  perished  in  the  pro 
cess.  Coming  to  a  later  period  we  find  that  the  town 
governments  of  the  Middle  Ages  sank  in  Italy  into 
the  possession  of  small  native  and  large  foreign 
tyrants,  while  in  the  North  of  Europe  the  direct 
control  of  the  citizens  was  replaced  by  that  of  guilds 
in  the  larger,  and  by  feudal  lords  in  the  smaller 
towns.  The  English-speaking  people  not  only  re 
vived  direct  government  by  popular  meetings  here 
in  America,  but  they  preserved  local  self-government 
everywhere,  saving  themselves  at  the  same  time  from 
Greek  disintegration  on  the  one  hand  and  from  the 
centralized  tyranny  of  Rome  on  the  other.  This 
they  accomplished  by  the  application  of  the  principle 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    235 

of  representation,  and  by  this  invention  or  application 
it  has  been  possible  to  build  up  the  United  States 
and  the  British  Empire  which  combine  the  control 
of  vast  areas  and  great  populations  with  personal 
freedom  and  local  self-government.  The  town-meet 
ing  is  profoundly  interesting  not  simply  as  represent 
ing  the  ancient  rule  of  the  popular  assembly,  nor 
chiefly  because  in  American  hands  it  has  proved  the 
best  system  of  local  self-government  ever  devised. 
Its  deepest  significance  lies  in  the  fact  that  out  of 
these  towns  and  out  of  our  self-governing  communi 
ties  everywhere  we  have  been  able  to  construct  a 
solid  fabric  of  State  and  nation.  This  has  been 
accomplished  politically  speaking  through  the  prin 
ciple  of  representation.  Here  in  New  England  the 
towns  as  such  received  representation  in  the  General 
Court,  and  their  union  made  the  colony.  Thence  we 
proceeded  to  the  union  of  the  Puritan  colonies  in  the 
New  England  confederation  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury,  which,  although  it  did  not  endure,  set  the 
example  for  the  union  of  all  the  colonies,  which  in 
turn  developed  first  into  the  Confederation,  and  then 
into  the  great  Union  of  the  States.  It  is  in  New 
England  and  through  such  towns  as  this  that  the 
possibility  of  forming  governments  on  a  large  scale 
composed  of  the  representatives  of  self-governing 
local  communities  was  first  demonstrated,  and  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  representing  the  States 


236    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

themselves,  is  the  lasting  embodiment  of  this  principle 
in  our  national  system.  The  towns  of  New  England 
teach  us,  therefore,  not  only  the  value  of  local  self- 
government,  but  the  far  higher  importance  of  politi 
cal  union  if  we  would  have  a  powerful  nation,  and 
not  a  collection  of  jarring  atoms  out  of  which  noth 
ing  great,  nothing  of  worth  could  ever  come. 

Yet  even  more  serious  than  the  combination  of 
local  self-government  with  the  union  of  States  from 
which  national  life  springs,  is  the  balance  between 
the  two  principles.  The  complete  predominance  of 
local  self-government  means  disintegration  ;  and  its 
undue  diminution,  still  more  its  extinction  would 
mean  centralism  accompanied  by  despotism  thinly 
veiled.  It  is  therefore  of  the  utmost  importance 
that  the  balance  between  these  two  great  principles 
should  be  accurately  maintained  and  the  equilibrium 
between  the  immediate  popular  government  by  the 
town-meeting  and  government  by  representation  care 
fully  preserved.  Local  affairs  belong  to  the  local 
government,  state  and  national  policies  to  the  gov 
ernment  by  representation.  The  substitution  of  rep 
resentative  for  direct  government  in  local  affairs, 
which  the  growth  of  population  has  made  necessary, 
has  not  been  a  success,  and  our  great  cities  reveal  the 
evils  which  have  resulted  from  the  change.  The  loss 
of  the  direct  popular  action  of  the  town-meeting  has 
been  followed  by  many  bad  results  in  the  manage- 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    237 

ment  of  the  business  of  the  cities,  and  it  is  a  matter 
for  careful  consideration  whether  we  cannot  modify, 
if  we  are  unable  wholly  to  cure,  the  evils  in  our  great 
municipalities  by  a  reversion  in  some  measure  to  the 
direct  popular  action  of  the  town-meeting,  which  is 
in  its  essence  a  meeting  of  neighbors.  It  seems 
as  if  the  political  divisions  of  cities  might  be  made 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  bring  again  into  operation, 
partially  at  least,  the  neighborhood  system. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  methods  of  the  town-meet 
ing  should  never  be  permitted  to  trench  upon  the 
representative  government  of  State  or  nation.  I  do 
not  mean  by  this  the  legislation  which  affects  only  a 
locality,  a  single  city,  or  a  town,  and  which  is  often 
referred  to  the  inhabitants  of  such  localities  for  ac 
ceptance  or  rejection.  Such  laws  are  in  their  nature 
measures  of  local  self-government,  and  come  obviously 
and  clearly  within  the  principles  of  the  town  system. 
They  are  easily  distinguished  from  other  measures 
of  general  application  to  the  entire  people  of  the  State, 
and  it  is  these  latter  which  should  never  be  withdrawn 
from  the  full  representative  control.  The  essence  of 
representative  government  is  responsibility,  and  when 
that  responsibility  ceases  representative  government 
becomes  anarchy  and  we  are  fairly  on  the  way  to 
such  scenes  as  were  enacted  during  the  French  Revo 
lution,  when  the  Paris  mob,  breaking  into  the  As 
sembly  or  the  Convention,  dictated  the  passage  of 


238    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

laws.  The  control  of  the  electors  over  the  represent 
ative  is  direct,  and  if  he  does  not  satisfy  them  he  can 
be  replaced ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  he  repre 
sents  not  merely  the  people  of  his  own  district,  but  in 
due  proportion  the  people  of  the  entire  State.  If  re 
sponsibility  is  taken  from  him  by  compelling  him  to 
vote  for  measures  solely  because  they  have  secured  a 
certain  number  of  petitioners,  or  if  he  is  at  liberty 
to  refer  measures  of  all  sorts  to  popular  vote,  he  ceases 
to  be  representative  and  becomes  a  mere  machine  of 
record.  When  responsibility  vanishes  representative 
government  is  at  an  end,  and  all  the  safeguards  of 
debate  and  discussion,  of  deliberate  action,  of  amend 
ment  or  compromise,  are  gone  forever.  Legislative 
anarchy  would  ensue,  and  we  might  easily  find  our 
selves  in  a  position  where  the  mob  of  a  single  large 
city  would  dominate  legislation,  and  laws  would  be 
thrust  upon  us  ruinous  to  the  State  itself  and  to  the 
best  interests  of  the  entire  people  of  the  State.  No 
constitutional  change  or  statutory  arrangement  should 
ever  be  permitted  which  would  take  from  the  repre 
sentative  the  responsibility  of  final  action  by  his  own 
vote  or  allow  him  to  shift  that  responsibility  onto  a 
reference  to  a  popular  vote,  where  amendment  or  mod 
ification  so  essential  to  wise  legislation  is  absolutely 
impossible. 

From  these  same  town  governments  of  New  Eng 
land  which  have  had  such  success  and  such  an  influ- 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    239 

ence  upon  the  history  and  political  development  of 
the  United  States  another  great  lesson  may  also  be 
learned,  even  more  important  than  that  which  I  have 
just  suggested,  by  examining  the  limits  which  the 
men  of  the  town-meeting  set  to  the  action  of  govern 
ment  and  to  the  duties  which  government  should 
undertake. 

In  the  beginning,  and  entirely  in  accordance  with 
the  belief  and  practice  of  the  time,  the  settlers  of  New 
England  established  a  state  church.  They  carried 
this  theory  in  the  ardor  of  their  religious  zeal  to  its 
extremest  verge,  for  they  actually  made  the  church 
and  State  one.  The  freeman  and  voter  of  the  colony 
at  the  outset  could  be  such  only  by  being  also  a 
member  of  the  church.  The  meeting-house  was  the 
church,  the  corner-stone  of  every  organized  town,  and 
the  people  who  governed  the  one  controlled  the  other. 
The  most  extreme  features  of  the  system,  as  well  as 
the  rigid  intolerance  which  it  implied,  were  largely 
modified  before  the  seventeenth  century  had  closed, 
but  the  influence  of  the  church  on  politics  continued ; 
and  it  was  not  until  two  hundred  years  after  the 
settlement  of  Plymouth  that  the  last  vestiges  of  the 
union  of  the  church  and  State  in  Massachusetts  were 
removed  by  constitutional  amendment.  It  was  a 
long  struggle,  and  the  results,  which  embodied  a 
policy  adopted  from  the  outset  by  Pennsylvania  and 
now  universal  in  the  United  States,  cannot  be  over- 


240    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

estimated.  The  State  in  America  withdrew  entirely 
from  all  connection  with  the  religion  of  the  people. 
We  were  the  first  to  establish  this  great  principle,  to 
which  the  rest  of  Western  civilization  is  coming 
slowly  and  with  halting  steps.  We  hardly  realize 
now  what  a  revolution  we  wrought,  but  we  must 
never  forget  its  meaning.  The  State  meddles  with 
no  man's  conscience,  and  every  man  is  free  to  follow 
his  own  religious  convictions.  But  let  it  be  remem 
bered  that  this  noble  attitude  of  the  State  is  a  corol 
lary  of  the  proposition  that  no  church  as  such  must 
meddle  with  the  State,  that  religious  tbeliefs  must  be 
kept  out  of  politics,  and  that  no  dollar  of  the  public 
money  contributed  by  all  the  people  must  be  expended 
for  the  benefit  of  any  sect  including  only  a  part  of 
the  people.  Easy  forgetfulness  of  this  truth,  any 
relaxation  in  the  line  which  separates  church  and 
State  made  either  by  the  church  or  State  strikes  at 
the  very  roots  of  our  institutions,  and  would  open  the 
door  to  let  uncounted  evils  rush  in  upon  us. 

The  struggle  for  the  separation  of  church  and  State 
in  the  towns  of  New  England  was  long  and  severe, 
for  our  people  are  naturally  and  wisely  conservative. 
But  in  other  directions  the  same  tendencies  to  restrict 
the  powers  of  the  government  are  apparent.  The 
communal  features  of  the  earliest  settlements,  so  in 
teresting  historically,  faded  rapidly  away  only  to  sur 
vive  here  and  there  as  curious  monuments  in  what 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    241 

were  known  as  commons,  rights  of  pasture,  and  the 
like.  Apart  from  these  the  New  England  towns 
adopted  with  extraordinary  unanimity  the  principle 
that  the  government  should  be  as  limited  in  its  func 
tions  as  was  possible,  and  that  the  largest  scope  should 
be  given  to  the  individual  man  to  work  out  his  own 
fortune  here  and  !his  own  salvation  hereafter.  They 
believed,  or  came  by  experience  to  believe,  that  this 
was  the  only  safe  principle,  whether  from  the  stand 
point  of  practical  government  or  from  that  of  democ 
racy  and  popular  sovereignty.  How  successful,  how 
wise,  how  strong  this  doctrine  has  proved  is  shown  by 
what  the  United  States  is  to-day.  Under  this  theory 
of  government,  this  country  has  been  built  up,  our 
vast  prosperity  attained,  and  all  our  triumphs  as  a 
people  won.  In  view  of  the  past  let  us  beware  how 
we  depart  from  the  principles,  practices,  and  beliefs 
of  our  forefathers.  I  say  this  not  because  the  sphere 
of  governmental  action  has  been  inevitably  enlarged 
by  the  growth  and  development  of  the  country,  but 
because  it  is  seriously  proposed  to  extend  the  sphere 
of  governmental  action  in  State,  in  nation,  and  in 
municipalities  in  ways  which  are  not  at  all  inevitable, 
but  which  are  advocated  openly  for  the  purpose  of 
destroying  our  old  system  of  restricted  government 
joined  to  large  individual  liberty,  and  replacing  it 
with  another  and  totally  different  arrangement. 
The  system  proposed  is  not  new.  It  is  one  of  the 


16 


242    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

oldest  schemes  for  the  abolition  of  all  existing  evils 
ever  devised,  and  in  one  form  or  another  has  been 
tried  and  failed  at  intervals  almost  since  the  begin 
nings  of  human  history.  The  new  system  is  really 
that  which  we  have  developed  and  built  upon  here. 
Thus  far  modern  democracy,  which  since  our  war  for 
independence  and  the  French  Revolution  has  been 
steadily  taking  possession  of  the  world  of  Western 
civilization,  has  proceeded  upon  the  American  theory 
of  the  least  possible  interference  by  government  and 
the  largest  possible  individual  liberty  compatible  with 
the  rights  of  others.  The  measure  of  its  success  can 
be  gauged  by  contrasting  the  United  States  with 
Russia,  the  former  the  most  perfect  exponent  of  the 
modern  system,  the  latter  a  fairly  complete  example 
of  the  old  theory  embodied  in  what  is  in  its  essence 
a  military  and  religious  socialism  where  the  govern 
ment  is  everything  and  the  individual  nothing.  The 
breakdown  of  the  Russian  system  under  modern  eco 
nomic  conditions  is  going  on  before  our  eyes  to-day  and 
where  it  will  end  no  man  can  say;  but  this  is  not 
what  concerns  us.  Our  interest  and  welfare  lie  in 
determining  whither  the  movements  for  larger  gov 
ernmental  action  are  tending  here.  That  they  lead 
toward  the  system  of  Russia  and  away  from  the  prin 
ciple  upon  which  we  have  built  up  the  United  States 
is  undoubted.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  draw  the  line. 
No  hard  and  fast  rule  can  be  laid  down,  and  hence 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    243 

the  enormous  difficulty  of  the  problem.  The  "let 
alone  "  theory,  carried  to  its  full  extreme,  ends  in 
anarchy  and  in  the  condition  of  the  savages  of  Tierra 
del  Fuego.  t  The  governmental  theory,  carried  to  its 
extreme,  ends  in  the  despotism  of  Russia  or  of  Rome ; 
for,  call  the  system  socialism  or  by  any  other  fine 
name  you  please,  governments  are  composed  of  men, 
and  if  you  concentrate  all  powers  and  all  business  in 
government  you  concentrate  it  in  the  hands  of  the 
men  who  compose  the  government  and  they  become 
despots,  at  first  in  fact  and  at  last  in  name,  and 
then  the  people  are  condemned  to  ignorance  and  pov 
erty  or  beguiled  by  bread  and  games  if  they  grow 
turbulent.  Socialists  and  anarchists  are  often  spoken 
of  together  as  if  they  were  similar.  They  are  really 
the  antipodes  of  each  other.  The  socialist  would 
have  the  government  everything,  the  anarchist  would 
destroy  all  government. 

Somewhere  between  these  extremes  lies  the  path 
of  safety.  It  may  be  narrow  and  of  uncertain  bound 
aries,  but  it  gives  a  firm  footing  and  it  is  on  that 
ground  that  we  have  won  our  success  and  preserved 
our  freedom.  To  us,  indeed  to  the  world  at  this 
period,  it  is  all-important  to  understand  what  that 
safe  ground  is,  to  define  it  so  far  as  we  can.  Let  us 
make  an  attempt  here  to-day  to  find  that  definition  in 
broad  outline  at  least. 

There  are  certain  things  which  from  universal  ex- 


244    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

perience  and  by  general  consent  everybody  agrees  must 
be  done  by  government ;  that  is,  by  the  combined  force 
of  the  community  organized  politically.  For  example, 
it  is  agreed  by  all  that  the  army  and  navy  must  be 
organized,  paid,  and  controlled,  and  peace  abroad  and 
order  at  home  must  be  maintained  by  the  govern 
ment.  It  is  also  agreed  that  the  government  shall 
provide  opportunities  for  education  for  all  children, 
but  that  on  the  other  hand  it  shall  not  build  churches 
or  interfere  with  any  man's  religion.  We  might 
go  on  enumerating  the  recognized  functions  of  the 
government,  and  on  the  other  side  the  fields  from 
which  it  is  excluded,  but  we  can  sum  it  all  up  by  say 
ing  that  the  American  theory  has  hitherto  been  that 
of  the  old  New  England  town,  to  leave  to  individual 
effort  everything  possible,  and  use  the  government  or 
the  combined  forces  of  the  community  only  when  it 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  do  so.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  to  this  liberty  of  individual  action  and 
to  the  spirit  of  enterprise  which  it  has  generated  are 
due  the  vast  material  success  of  the  United  States  and 
an  economic  organization  which  in  energy  and  force 
surpasses  any  other.  The  economic  success  of  the 
various  nations  is  in  fact  proportioned  to  the  degree 
of  individual  liberty  existing  among  the  people.  Those 
like  the  United  States  and  England,  where  this  liberty 
is  largest,  have  been  the  most  successful ;  those  where 
the  paternal  system  is  the  most  extreme,  as  in  Russia, 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    245 

have  fallen  behind  in  the  race ;  yet  we  see  none  the 
less  at  this  moment  a  marked  movement  to  revert  to 
extreme  forms  of  paternalism.  This  is  due  no  doubt 
in  large  measure  to  the  actions  of  the  great  combina 
tions  of  capital  which  modern  conditions  have  devel 
oped.  The  belief  that  combinations  so  vast  should 
not  and  cannot  be  allowed  to  operate  unchecked  and 
unwatched  is  not  only  natural,  but  sound  and  right. 
But  there  is  a  wide  distinction  between  government 
supervision  and  regulation  of  these  enormous  agencies 
for  the  conduct  of  business  and  government  owner 
ship  and  operation  of  such  agencies.  The  one  is  a 
necessity  in  the  public  interest  developed  by  modern 
conditions  ;  the  other  is  a  revolution  in  our  entire 
theory  and  practice  of  government.  Government 
ownership  of  the  railroads  of  this  country,  to  take 
but  a  single  instance,  would  mean  in  its  fulfilment 
the  destruction  of  the  institutions  we  have  known 
and  loved,  and  under  which  our  liberties  have  been 
won  and  preserved.  You  may  call  the  system  social 
ism  or  anything  else  you  choose,  but  when  the  govern 
ment  owns  and  controls  all  the  business  agencies,  the 
men  who  by  any  means  come  to  control  the  govern 
ment  are  your  masters  and  mine.  We  should  have 
an  oligarchy  composed  of  a  few  office-holders,  a  despot 
at  their  head,  and  all  below  on  one  sordid  level  where 
hope  had  perished  and  ambition  was  dead.  There  is 
no  reason  whatever  to  suppose  that  under  such  con- 


246    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

ditions  poverty  would  disappear.  There  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  it  would  be  made  uniform  and 
universal.  Poverty  is  a  terrible  evil  which  all  right- 
minded  men  should  labor  to  alleviate  and  to  reduce, 
but  it  can  hardly  be  lessened  by  a  system  which 
would  destroy  all  wealth  by  removing  every  possible 
desire  for  its  creation  or  increase.  Yet  even  lhe_  ex 
tinction  of  the  worst  forms  of  poverty,  were  that 
possible,  would  be  a  heavy  price  to  pay  for  the  de 
struction  of  hope,  of  striving,  of  the  effort  to  lift 
one's  self  and  one's  fellows  a  little  higher  which 
alone  makes  life  worth  having.  If  like  the  European 
Socialists  you  carry  the  old,  old  system  which  you 
would  reimpose  upon  mankind  to  its  logical  extreme, 
you  must  seek  the  destruction  of  nationality  and  dis 
pense  with  the  love  of  country.  In  an  economic  age 
like  our  own,  when  adoration  of  money  is  an  ever 
present  peril  beware  how  you  destroy  patriotism,  one 
of  the  few  great  ideals  left  to  men,  for  it  is  by  faith 
and  ideals  alone  that  man  has  been  able  to  rise  to 
higher  things.  The  founders  of  these  towns,  the 
statesmen  who  made  the  republic,  were  men  of  deep 
religious  faith,  lovers  of  freedom  and  of  their  fellow- 
men,  ready  to  sacrifice  all  in  loyalty  to  their  native 
land.  We  have  entered  into  their  great  inheritance. 
Let  us  not  cast  away  that  which  was  best  and  noblest 
in  it. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  argument  for  individual 


CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT    247 

liberty  is  called  the  argument  of  the  successful.  But 
where  would  men  or  nations  be  if  they  took  as  their 
guides  and  exemplars  only  those  who  had  failed  ? 
Would  not  such  a  course  lead  to  failure  and  defeat  ? 
The  teaching  of  history  seems  to  me  to  prove  that 
there  are  no  short  cuts  to  universal  happiness,  no 
panaceas  for  all  human  evils.  When  the  short  cuts 
have  been  tried  they  have  led  usually  to  quagmires, 
or  to  desolate  walls  of  rock  which  could  not  be 
scaled.  The  panaceas  have  inevitably  turned  out 
to  be  quack  medicines,  which  made  the  last  state  of 
those  who  put  faith  in  them  worse  than  the  first. 
History  demonstrates  that  every  real  advance  which 
has  been  made  has  come  slowly  and  by  long  and 
patient  labor.  It  is  quite  true  that  this  is  a  hard 
doctrine  and  offers  no  brilliant  and  enticing  promises, 
but  it  is  at  least  true,  and  it  deceives  no  one  by  visions 
as  unreal  as  the  dreams  of  the  opium  eater.  In  the 
long  run  an  uncomfortable  truth,  as  has  been  well 
said,  is  a  better  companion  than  an  agreeable  false 
hood.  There  have  always  been  much  suffering,  many 
evils  in  the  world ;  some  have  been  removed,  others 
have  been  alleviated,  many  still  remain.  We  can 
make  them  better,  we  can  help  humanity  only  by  the 
slow  and  steady  processes  which  have  served  us  in 
the  past.  It  is  every  man's  part  to  address  himself 
to  this  work,  but  no  man  will  do  it  if  you  take  from 
him  every  hope  and  leave  him  to  grope  along  upon  a 


248    CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES  OF  TOWN  GOVERNMENT 

dull  level  from  which  neither  he  nor  his  neighbor 
can  ever  rise.  The  New  England  towns  fought  their 
hard  battle  with  savage  and  wilderness,  and  won. 
They  were  a  plain  folk  these  founders  of  the  towns, 
but  they  had  faith  and  hope,  lofty  ideals,  and  a  fine 
self-confidence;  you  may  look  far  before  you  will 
find  a  nobler  or  wiser  lesson  than  they  teach.  Can 
we  do  better  than  take  that  lesson  of  the  fathers  to 
heart  on  days  like  this  when  we  celebrate  the  foun 
dation  of  one  of  these  liberty-loving,  self-governing, 
independent  communities  whose  principles  and  beliefs 
have  made  New  England,  yes,  the  United  States, 
what  it  is  to-day? 


FRANKLIN  l 

MANY  years  ago,  when  in  London  for  the  first 
time,  I  remember  being  filled  with  the  indignant  as 
tonishment  of  which  youth  alone  is  capable  at  seeing 
upon  the  pedestal  of  a  statue  placed  in  a  public  square 
the  single  word  "  Franklin."  A  Boston  boy,  born 
within  a  stone's  throw  almost  of  the  birthplace  of 
"  Poor  Richard,"  I  had  never  deemed  it  possible  that 
any  Franklin  but  one  could  be  referred  to  by  that 
name  alone  without  further  definition  or  qualification. 
I  knew,  of  course,  who  the  subject  of  the  British 
statue  was,  a  brave  naval  officer  and  bold  explorer, 
who  had  lost  his  life  in  a  futile  effort  to  achieve 
an  almost  equally  futile  object.  But  I  had  a  vague 
impression  that  "  heroic  sailor  souls "  had  very 
fortunately  been  not  uncommon  among  English- 
speaking  people,  whereas  I  had  supposed  that  men  like 
Benjamin  Franklin  had  been  rather  rare  among  the 
people  of  any  race.  I  have  passed  the  British  statue 
many  times  since  then.  My  youthful  and  indig 
nant  astonishment  has  long  since  vanished,  and  the 

1  I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  the  editor  and  publishers  of  the 
Independent  for  permission  to  reprint  this  article,  which  appeared  in 
that  periodical  in  January,  1906. 


250  FRANKLIN 

humor  of  the  inscription  has  become  very  apparent  to 
me.  I  know  now  that  the  inscription  merely  repre 
sents  a  solid  British  habit  of  claiming  everything, 
ignoring  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  enlarging  to  the 
utmost  their  own  achievements,  both  great  and  small, 
upon  the  entirely  sound  principle  that  a  constant  and 
fearless  assertion  of  one's  own  virtues  will  lead  a  con 
siderable  proportion  of  a  very  busy  and  somewhat 
indifferent  world  to  take  one  at  one's  own  valuation. 
The  highly  humorous  side  of  describing  Sir  John  as 
the  only  Franklin,  and  relegating  to  obscurity  a 
man  who  achieved  greatness  in  literature,  in  science, 
in  politics,  and  in  diplomacy,  and  who  was  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  figures  in  a  brilliant  century,  has 
come  in  the  lapse  of  time  to  give  me  no  little  real 
pleasure. 

I  have  also  learned  that  my  early  estimate  of  the 
man  commonly  referred  to  outside  of  England  as 
"  Franklin  "  was  not  only  vague,  but,  although  right 
in  direction,  was  still  far  short  of  the  truth,  which 
a  better  knowledge  enables  me  to  substitute  for  an 
ill-defined  belief.  Two  hundred  years  have  elapsed 
since  his  birth  in  the  little  house  on  Milk  Street  in 
Boston,  and  as  the  anniversary  of  that  event  is  now 
being  celebrated,  it  is  well  worth  while  to  pause  for  a 
moment  and  consider  him.  Few  men,  be  it  said, 
better  deserve  consideration,  for  he  not  only  played 
a  great  part  in  shaping  events  and  influencing 


FRANKLIN  251 

human  thought,  but  he  represents  his  time  more 
completely,  perhaps,  than  any  other  actor  in  it,  some 
thing  which  is  always  in  and  of  itself  a  memorable 
feat. 

Franklin's  time  was  the  eighteenth  century,  which 
his  long  life  nearly  covered.  When  he  was  born 
Anne  was  Queen,  and  England,  agitated  by  dynastic 
struggles,  was  with  difficulty  making  head  against  the 
world-wide  power  of  Louis  XIV.  When  Franklin 
died  France  had  been  driven  from  North  America, 
the  British  Empire  had  been  divided,  his  own  being 
one  of  the  master  hands  in  the  division,  the  United 
States  of  America  had  started  on  their  career  as  a 
nation,  and  the  dawning  light  of  the  French  Rev 
olution  was  beginning  to  redden  the  skies.  Mar 
vellous  changes  these  to  be  enclosed  within  the  span 
of  one  brief  human  life,  and  yet  they  were  only 
part  of  the  story.  The  truth  is  that  the  eighteenth 
century  was  a  very  remarkable  period.  Not  so  very 
long  ago  this  statement  would  have  been  regarded  as 
a  rather  silly  paradox,  and  in  a  little  while  it  will 
be  looked  upon  as  a  commonplace.  But  as  yet  we 
are  not  wholly  free  from  the  beliefs  of  our  fathers 
in  this  respect.  The  nineteenth  century,  in  its  lusty 
youth  and  robust  middle  age,  adopted  as  part  of  its 
creed  the  belief  that  its  predecessor  upon  the  roll 
of  time,  from  whose  loins  it  sprang,  deserved  only 
the  contempt  and  hatred  of  mankind.  Incited 


252  FRANKLIN 

thereto  by  the  piercing  invectives  of  the  Romantic 
school,  brimming  over  with  genius,  and  just  then 
in  possession  of  the  earth,  and  by  the  clamors  of 
Thomas  Carlyle,  the  nineteenth  century  held  that 
the  eighteenth  was  a  period  of  shams  and  conven 
tions,  of  indifference  and  immorality,  of  unspeakable 
oppressions  and  of  foul  miseries  hidden  behind  a  gay 
and  glittering  exterior,  the  heyday  of  a  society 
which  in  a  word  deserved  the  fate  of  the  cities  of 
the  plain. 

This  view  was  true  enough,  so  far  as  it  went; 
but  it  was  by  no  means  the  whole  story.  It  had 
the  fascination  of  simplicity  and  of  convenience  which 
half-truths  nearly  always  possess ;  but  as  Mr.  Speaker 
Reed  once  said,  "half-truths  are  simple,  but  the 
whole  truth  is  the  most  complicated  thing  on  earth.'* 
The  time  has  now  come  when  we  may  begin  to  ap 
proximate  the  whole  truth.  Indeed,  before  the  nine 
teenth  century  had  closed  it  had  begun  to  modify 
its  opinions  and  to  be  less  sure  about  the  total  de 
pravity  of  its  progenitor.  Under  the  skilful  manip 
ulations  of  bric-a-brac  dealers  the  art  and  furniture 
of  the  eighteenth  century  have  become  and  are  now 
the  fashion.  It  is  a  pretty  trivial  art  at  best,  very 
inferior  to  that  which  the  nineteenth  century,  in 
France  at  least,  has  produced ;  but  it  is  always 
pleasant  to  observe  the  whirligig  of  time  bring  in  its 
revenges,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  eighteenth- 


FRANKLIN  253 

century  furniture  is  an  indescribable  improvement 
over  the  dreadful  taste  known  as  Victorian,  but  which 
really  came  forth  like  the  Goths  and  Vandals  of  old 
time  from  the  heart  of  Germany,  to  submerge  and 
ruin  a  careless  and  unsuspecting  world.  Still,  what 
ever  their  merits  may  be,  the  eighteenth  century  in 
pictures  and  chairs  and  tables  is  again  in  high  fashion, 
and  perhaps  we  can  now  begin  to  see  also  that  it 
had  its  great  side  as  well  as  its  bad  one,  and  that  it 
was  in  reality  a  very  wonderful  time. 

It  is  usually  said  as  beyond  dispute  that  it  had 
no  poetry  in  the  nobler  and  more  imaginative  sense ; 
and  if  by  poetry  is  meant  the  immortal  work  of  the 
Elizabethans  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  Romantic 
school  on  the  other,  we  may  be  sure  that,  speaking 
broadly,  the  eighteenth  century,  like  Audrey,  was  not 
poetical.  Yet  none  the  less  this  unpoetical,  unimag 
inative  century  produced  Gray  and  Burns  in  Great 
Britain,  Chenier  and  Gilbert  in  France,  the  first  part 
of  "  Faust "  —  enough  glory  in  itself  for  many  centu 
ries —  and  the  " Wallenstein  Trilogy"  in  Germany. 
It  was,  too,  the  century  of  Bach  and  Handel  and 
Haydn ;  it  gave  birth  to  Mozart  and  Beethoven,  — 
something  of  a  record  for  an  unimaginative  century 
in  the  most  imaginative  of  arts.  Even  those  who 
decry  it  most  admit  its  greatness  in  prose,  where 
it  developed  a  style  which  culminated  in  Gibbon  and 
Burke.  In  pure  intellect  it  can  hardly  be  surpassed 


254  FRANKLIN 

by  any  of  its  fellows,  for  it  was  the  century  of 
Immanuel  Kant.  It  was  likewise  the  century  of 
Louis  XV,  perhaps  the  meanest  thing  that  acci 
dent  ever  cast  upon  a  throne,  but  it  was  also  the 
century  of  Frederick  the  Great.  It  was  illustrated 
in  its  youth  by  the  Regent  Orleans,  and  illuminated 
at  its  close  by  George  Washington.  It  was  the  cen 
tury  of  Casanova,  most  typical  and  amusing  of 
rascals,  and  it  was  equally  the  century  of  John  Wes 
ley.  It  was  a  time  when  men  persecuted  for  a 
religion  in  which  they  had  no  faith,  and  sneered  at 
the  doctrines  of  the  church  to  which  they  conformed. 
The  classes  revelled  in  luxury,  and  the  masses  were 
sunk  in  poverty.  Corruption  ran  riot  in  the  public 
service,  and  the  oppression  of  the  people  was  without 
limit  on  the  Continent,  where  the  lettre  de  cachet  of  the 
French  king  flung  men  into  prison,  and  wretched  Ger 
man  princelings  sold  their  subjects  to  die  in  foreign 
wars  that  they  might  build  ugly  palaces  and  main 
tain  still  more  ugly  mistresses.  Yet  in  those  evil 
days  more  was  done  to  set  free  human  thought  and 
strike  off  the  shackles  of  priestly  rule  than  in  any 
century  which  history  records.  More  was  then  done 
to  give  men  political  liberty  and  build  up  constitu 
tional  government  than  in  all  the  previous  centuries, 
for  it  was  the  century  of  Montesquieu  and  Rousseau 
and  the  Federalist,  of  the  revolt  of  the  American  Colo 
nies  and  of  the  French  Revolution.  It  was  the 


FRANKLIN  255 

century  of  kings  and  nobles,  yet  it  gave  birth  to 
modern  democracy.  The  spirit  of  revolt  went  side  by 
side  with  the  spirit  of  reaction  and  convention.  There 
were  indeed  two  voices  in  the  eighteenth  century.  We 
know  which  one  truly  foretold  the  coming  days.  But 
which  was  the  true  voice  of  the  time  ?  Was  it  Vol 
taire,  pleading  the  cause  of  the  Galas  family,  or  that 
of  Foulon,  declaring  that  the  people  might  eat  grass  ? 
Which  was  the  true  leader,  George  Washington  at 
Valley  Forge,  or  George  III  hiring  Indians  and  Hes 
sians  to  carry  out  his  mother's  injunction,  "  George, 
be  a  king"?  It  was  veritably  a  wonderful  century, 
full  of  meaning,  rich  in  intellect,  abounding  in 
contradictions. 

It  produced,  too,  many  great  men,  but  none  more 
fully  representative  than  Benjamin  Franklin  of  all 
that  made  it  memorable.  He  reflected  at  once  its 
greatness  and  its  contradictions,  although  not  its  evil 
side,  because  in  those  years  of  change  and  ferment  he 
was  ranged  with  the  children  of  light,  and  was  ever 
reaching  out  for  new  and  better  things.  Of  pure 
English  stock,  born  in  a  community  where  Puritanism 
was  still  dominant,  where  religion  was  rigid  and  mo 
rality  austere,  he  was  an  adventurer  in  his  youth,  a 
liberal  always,  a  free-thinker  in  religion,  the  moralist 
of  common-sense,  and  pre-eminently  the  man  of  the 
world,  at  home  in  all  societies  and  beneath  every  sky. 
He  had  the  gift  of  success,  and  he  went  on  and  up 


256  FRANKLIN 

from  the  narrow  fortunes  of  a  poor,  hard-working 
family  until  he  stood  in  the  presence  of  kings  and 
shaped  the  destinies  of  nations. 

The  Puritanism  to  which  he  was  born  fell  away 
from  him  at  the  start,  and  in  his  qualities  and  his 
career  it  seems  as  if  he  reproduced  the  type  of  the 
men  of  Elizabeth's  time  who  founded  Virginia  and 
New  England ;  for  he  had  all  the  versatility,  the  spirit 
of  adventure,  the  enormous  vitality  and  splendid  con 
fidence  in  life  and  in  the  future  which  characterized 
that  great  epoch.  Yet  he  had  also  the  calmness,  the 
self-control,  the  apparent  absence  of  enthusiasm  which 
were  the  note  of  his  own  time.  The  restlessness  of 
mind  which  marked  the  Elizabethans  was  his  in  a 
high  degree,  but  it  was  masked  by  a  cool  and  calcu 
lating  temperament  rarely  found  in  the  days  of  the 
great  Queen. 

Franklin  was  born  not  only  a  Puritan  Englishman, 
but  a  colonist ;  yet  never  was  there  a  man  with  less 
of  the  colonist  or  the  provincial  about  him.  A  condi 
tion  of  political  dependence  seems  for  some  mysteri 
ous  reason  to  have  a  depressing  effect  upon  those  who 
remain  continuously  in  that  condition.  The  soil  of  a 
dependency  appears  to  be  unfavorable  to  the  produc 
tion  of  ability  of  a  high  type  in  any  direction  until 
the  generation  arrives  which  is  ready  to  set  itself  free. 
Franklin  was  a  colonial  subject  until  he  was  seventy, 
and  yet  no  more  independent  man  than  he  lived  in 


FRANKLIN  257 

that  age  of  independent  thought.  He  rose  to  the 
highest  distinction  in  four  great  fields  of  activity,  any 
one  of  which  would  have  sufficed  for  a  life's  ambition ; 
he  moved  easily  in  the  society  of  France  and  England, 
he  appeared  at  the  most  brilliant  court  in  Europe, 
and  no  one  ever  thought  of  calling  him  provincial. 
The  atmosphere  of  a  dependency  never  clung  to 
him,  nor  in  the  heyday  of  aristocracy  was  his  humble 
origin  ever  remembered.  The  large-mindedness,  the 
complete  independence,  the  entire  simplicity  of  the 
man  dispersed  the  one  and  destroyed  the  memory 
of  the  other. 

Modern  history  contains  very  few  examples  of  a 
man  who,  with  such  meagre  opportunities  and  con 
fined  for  many  years  to  a  province  far  distant  from 
the  centres  of  civilization,  achieved  so  much  and 
showed  so  much  ability  in  so  many  different  ways 
as  Franklin.  With  only  the  education  of  the  common 
school  and  forced  to  earn  his  living  while  still  a  boy, 
he  became  a  man  of  wide  learning,  pre-eminent  in 
science,  and  a  writer,  in  the  words  of  one  of  the  first 
of  English  critics,1  "  of  supreme  literary  skill."  His 
autobiography  is  one  of  the  half-dozen  great  auto 
biographies  which  are  a  perennial  joy.  His  letters 
are  charming,  and  his  almanacs  (was  there  ever  a 
more  unlikely  vehicle  for  good  literature?)  were 
translated  into  many  languages,  delighted  with  their 

1  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell,  in  his  essay  on  "  Old  Booksellers." 
17 


258  FRANKLIN 

homely  wisdom  and  easy  humor  thousands  who 
thought  of  America  only  as  the  abode  of  wolves  and 
Indians,  and  made  the  name  of  "  Poor  Richard " 
familiar  to  the  civilized  world.  Yet  literature,  where 
he  attained  such  a  success,  winning  a  high  place  in  the 
literary  history  not  only  of  his  own  country,  but  of  his 
age  and  his  language,  was  but  his  pastime.  The 
intellectual  ambition  of  his  life  was  found  in  science, 
and  he  went  so  far  in  that  field  that  the  history 
of  one  of  the  great  natural  forces,  which  in  its  de 
velopment  has  changed  the  world,  cannot  be  written 
without  giving  one  of  the  first  places  of  pioneer  and 
discoverer  to  the  printer  of  Boston  and  Philadelphia. 
Yet  neither  literature  nor  science,  either  of  which  is 
quite  enough  to  fill  most  lives,  sufficed  for  Franklin. 
He  began  almost  at  the  very  beginning  to  take  a 
share  in  public  affairs.  His  earliest  writings  when 
a  printer  at  the  case  dealt  with  political  questions. 
He  then  entered  the  politics  of  the  city,  thence  he 
passed  to  the  larger  concerns  of  the  great  Province 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  at  every  step  he  showed  a  ca 
pacity  for  organization,  an  ability  for  managing  men 
and  a  power  of  persuasive  speech  rarely  equalled. 
He  had  a  way  of  carrying  measures  and  securing 
practical  and  substantive  results  which  excites  pro 
found  admiration,  since  nothing  is  more  difficult  than 
such  achievements  in  the  whole  range  of  public 
service.  This  is  especially  true  where  the  man  who 


FRANKLIN  259 

seeks  results  is  confronted  by  active  opposition  or 
by  that  even  more  serious  obstacle,  the  inertness  or 
indifference  of  the  community.  Yet  nothing  pleased 
Franklin  more  than  such  a  situation  as  arose  when 
in  time  of  war  he  overcame  the  Quaker  opposition 
to  putting  the  province  in  a  state  of  defence.  His 
method  was  not  as  a  rule  that  of  direct  attack.  He 
preferred  to  outwit  his  opponents,  an  operation  which 
gratified  his  sense  of  humor ;  and  a  favorite  device 
of  his  was  to  defeat  opposition  by  putting  forward 
anonymously  arguments  apparently  in  its  behalf, 
which,  by  their  irony  and  extravagance,  utterly  dis 
credited  the  cause  they  professed  to  support.  To 
his  success  in  the  field  of  public  discussion  he  added 
that  of  administration  when  he  became  Postmaster- 
General  for  the  colonies  and  organized  the  service, 
and  then  again  when  he  represented  Pennsylvania 
and  later  other  provinces  as  their  agent  in  London. 
It  was  there  in  England  that  he  defended  the  cause 
of  the  colonies  before  both  Parliament  and  Ministers 
when  resistance  to  taxation  began.  He  came  home 
an  old  man,  verging  on  seventy,  to  take  his  place 
as  one  of  the  chief  leaders  in  the  Revolution.  These 
leaders  of  revolution  were,  as  a  rule  and  as  is  usual 
at  such  periods,  young  men,  and  yet  there  was  not 
one  among  them  all  with  greater  flexibility  of  mind 
or  more  perfect  readiness  to  bring  on  the  great 
change  than  Franklin.  He  returned  again  to  Europe 


260  FRANKLIN 

to  seek  aid  for  his  country  in  the  war,  and  it  was 
chiefly  due  to  him  that  the  French  alliance,  which 
turned  the  scale,  was  formed.  When  the  war  drew 
to  a  close  it  was  he  who  began  alone  the  task  of 
making  peace.  He  had  nearly  completed  the  work 
when  his  colleagues  appeared  in  Paris  and  by  incau 
tious  words  broke  the  web  so  carefully  spun.  Patient 
and  undisturbed.  Franklin  began  again.  Again  he 
played  one  English  faction  against  the  other.  Again 
he  managed  France,  turning  to  good  advantage  the 
vigorous  abilities  of  Adams  and  the  caution  of  Jay. 
Finally,  boldly  disregarding  the  instructions  of  Con 
gress,  he  emerged  from  all  complications  with  a 
triumphant  peace. 

Even  then  his  work  was  not  done.  He  came  back 
to  America  to  govern  in  Pennsylvania  and  to  share 
in  making  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  thus 
exhibiting  the  power  to  build  up  as  well  as  to  pull 
down,  something  most  uncommon,  for  the  man  of 
revolution  is  rarely  a  constructive  statesman.  He 
closed  his  great  career  by  setting  his  hand  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  as  he  had  already 
done  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Yet  after  his  achievements  and  services  have  all 
been  recounted  we  still  come  back  to  that  which  was 
most  remarkable,  —  the  manner  in  which  he  at  once 
influenced  and  reflected  his  time.  The  eighteenth 
century  has  for  long  been  held  up  to  scorn  as  desti- 


FRANKLIN  261 

tute  of  enthusiasm,  lacking  in  faith  and  ideals,  in 
different  and  utterly  worldly.  Franklin  was  certainly 
devoid  of  enthusiasm,  and  yet  one  unbroken  purpose 
ran  strongly  through  his  life  and  was  pursued  by  him 
with  a  steadiness  and  force  which  are  frequently 
wanting  in  enthusiasts.  He  sought  unceasingly 
the  improvement  of  man's  condition  here  on  earth. 
Whether  it  was  the  invention  of  a  stove,  the  paving  of 
Philadelphia,  the  founding  of  a  library,  the  movement 
of  storms,  the  control  of  electric  currents,  or  the  de 
fence  of  American  liberty,  he  was  always  seeking  to 
instruct  and  help  his  fellow-men  and  to  make  their 
lot  a  better  and  happier  one.  The  morals  he  preached 
were  indeed  worldly ;  there  never  was  a  bit  of  moral 
ity  more  purely  of  the  account-book  kind  than  the 
familiar  aphorism  about  honesty,  and  yet  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  all  the  pulpits  in  America  did  more 
to  make  men  honest  and  thrifty,  and  to  develop 
good  and  sober  citizens  than  the  uninspired  preach 
ings  of  "  Poor  Richard."  He  was  a  sceptic,  as 
were  nearly  all  the  great  men  of  the  century,  but 
his  honest  doubt  helped  to  free  the  human  mind  and 
dispel  the  darkness  which  had  stayed  the  march  of 
intellect.  He  never  scoffed  at  religion ;  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  appeal  to  it  at  a  great  crisis  to  sway  the 
minds  of  his  fellows,  but  he  suffered  no  dogmas  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  that  opening  of  the  mind  which 
he  believed  would  advance  the  race  and  soften  by  its 


262  FRANKLIN 

discoveries  the  hard  fate  of  humanity.  He  was  con 
servative  by  nature  in  accordance  with  the  habit  of 
the  time,  but  that  which  was  new  had  no  terrors 
for  him,  and  he  entered  upon  the  path  of  revolution 
with  entire  calmness  when  he  felt  that  revolution 
had  become  necessary  to  the  welfare  and  happiness  of 
his  people. 

There  was  nothing  inevitable  about  the  American 
Kevolution  at  the  particular  time  at  which  it  came. 
It  would  have  failed  indeed  on  the  field  of  battle  had 
it  not  been  for  George  Washington.  But  when  the 
British  Government,  among  their  many  blunders, 
insulted  Franklin  and  rejected  his  counsel  they  cast 
aside  the  one  man  whose  wisdom  might  have  saved 
the  situation,  and,  so  far  as  they  could,  made  the  revolt 
of  the  colonies  unavoidable.  It  was  an  indifferent, 
cold-blooded  century,  and  both  epithets  have  been 
applied  to  Franklin,  no  doubt  with  some  justice. 
But  it  is  never  fair  to  judge  one  century  or  its  people 
by  the  standards  of  another.  Franklin  was  a  man  of 
extraordinary  self-control  combined  with  a  sense  of 
humor  which  never  deserted  him  and  which  is  easily 
mistaken  for  cold-blooded  indifference.  He  signed 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  it  is  said,  with  a 
jest;  yet  no  man  measured  its. meaning  or  felt  its 
gravity  more  than  he.  He  stood  silent  in  the  Cock- 
Pit  while  the  coarse  invective  of  Wedderburne  beat 
about  his  head,  and  made  no  reply.  The  only  re- 


FRANKLIN  263 

venge  he  took,  the  only  answer  he  ever  made,  if  tra 
dition  may  be  believed,  was  to  wear  when  he  signed 
the  treaty  acknowledging  American  independence  the 
same  coat  of  Manchester  velvet  which  he  wore  when 
the  pitiless  abuse  of  England's  Attorney-General  was 
poured  out  upon  him.  He  was  not  a  man  who  dis 
played  emotion  —  it  was  not  the  fashion  of  his  time. 
He  was  a  philosopher  and  a  stoic.  Perhaps,  as  Mr. 
Birrell  says,  he  was  neither  loving  nor  tender-hearted, 
yet  he  managed  both  in  his  life  and  in  the  disposition 
of  his  property  to  do  many  kindnesses  and  much  good 
to  those  to  whom  the  battle  of  life  was  hardest.  His 
sympathies  were  keen  for  mankind  rather  than  for 
the  individual,  but  that  again  was  the  fashion  of  his 
time  —  a  fashion  which  shattered  many  oppressions 
gray  with  the  age  of  centuries  and  redressed  many 
wrongs. 

Franklin  was  very  human,  far  from  perfect  in 
more  than  one  direction.  It  is  easy  enough  to  point 
out  blemishes  in  his  character.  But  as  a  public  man 
he  sought  no  private  ends,  and  his  great  and  versa 
tile  intellect  was  one  of  the  powerful  influences  which 
in  the  eighteenth  century  wrought  not  only  for  polit 
ical  liberty,  but  for  freedom  of  thought,  and  in  so 
doing  rendered  services  to  humanity  which  are  a 
blessing  to  mankind  to-day.  We  accept  the  blessings 
and  forget  too  often  to  whose  labors  in  a  receding 
past  they  are  due.  We  owe  a  vast  debt  to  the  great 


264  FRANKLIN 

men  of  the  eighteenth  century  who  brought  out  of  the 
shams  and  conventions  and  oppressions  of  that  time 
the  revolutions  in  politics,  in  society,  and  in  thought 
the  fruits  of  which  we  of  to-day  now  enjoy.  To  no 
one  of  these  men  is  the  world's  debt  larger  than  to 
Franklin. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  AT  ALGECIRAS1 

THE  presence  of  delegates  from  the  United  States 
at  the  Morocco  Conference  at  Algeciras  gave 
rise  to  more  or  less  discussion,  both  in  the  United 
States  and  Europe.  The  Democratic  opposition  in 
the  Senate  attacked  the  administration  of  President 
Roosevelt  for  sending  delegates  to  this  Conference, 
while  in  Europe  there  has  been  much  speculation 
as  to  the  reasons  for  the  action  of  the  United 
States,  especially  in  view  of  the  well-known  Monroe 
Doctrine.  The  Democratic  criticism  proceeded  on  the 
theory  that  the  presence  of  American  delegates  at 
Algeciras  involved  a  disregard  both  of  Washington's 
warning  against  "  entangling  alliances,"  and  also  of 
the  principles  laid  down  in  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  The 
discussion  in  Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  be 
chiefly  concerned  with  the  meaning  of  this  participa 
tion  by  the  United  States  in  a  European  Conference 
not  wholly  or  chiefly  commercial  in  its  purposes. 

The  domestic  criticism  was  based  upon  an  errone 
ous  and  twisted  conception  both  of  "Washington's 
advice  and  of  the  principles  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 

1 1  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Whelpley  the  representative  of  "  Potentia" 
in  the  United  States,  for  permission  to  republish  this  article. 


266        THE   UNITED   STATES   AT   ALGECIRAS 

while  the  foreign  speculation  seems  to  have  been  due 
partly  to  ignorance  of  American  action  toward  Mo 
rocco  in  the  past,  and  partly  to  a  wrong  idea  as  to  the 
well-settled  policy  of  the  United  States  in  regard  to 
its  foreign  relations.  It  is  not,  perhaps,  surprising, 
that  the  very  active  part  taken  by  the  United  States 
in  protecting  her  commerce  in  the  Mediterranean,  and 
the  highly  efficient  and  effective  war  which  she  waged 
with  the  Barbary  States  more  than  a  century  ago, 
should  now  be  forgotten.  But  it  is  a  little  odd  that 
both  at  home  and  abroad  the  fact  that  the  United 
States  in  1863  and  again  in  1880  joined  with  the 
European  Powers  in  making  treaties  with  Morocco 
should  apparently  be  entirely  overlooked,  for  that 
fact  was  at  once  the  reason  and  the  precedent  for 
American  action  during  the  past  year.  The  Treaty 
of  1863  related  to  the  establishment  of  a  lighthouse 
under  international  protection  at  Cape  Spartel,  and 
that  of  1880  was  an  elaborate  arrangement  for  de 
fining  the  rights  and  providing  for  the  protection  of 
foreigners  in  Morocco,  and  also  for  opening  the  ports 
of  Morocco  to  the  subjects  and  citizens  of  the  signa 
tory  Powers  on  terms  of  the  most  favored  nation. 
When  Moroccan  affairs  again  appeared  in  the  field 
of  international  politics  as  a  subject  of  discussion,  and 
it  became  necessary  to  settle  the  questions  which  had 
thus  arisen,  it  was  a  matter  of  course  that  all  the 
signatories  to  the  treaty  of  1880  should  be  invited  to 


THE   UNITED   STATES    AT   ALGECIRAS       267 

take  part,  and  the  United  States  was  accordingly 
asked  by  the  Sultan  of  Morocco  to  send  delegates  to 
Algeciras.  In  fact,  it  was  understood  that  some 
of  the  signatories  of  1880  refused  to  accept  the  in 
vitation  unless  all  were  asked,  and  especially  unless 
the  United  States  was  invited. 

There  was,  therefore,  nothing  new  or  startling  in 
the  fact  that  the  United  States  should  have  been 
asked  to  take  part  in  a  conference  to  settle  the 
affairs  of  Morocco,  for  this  was  merely  the  contin 
uance  of  a  policy  which  had  been  in  existence  for 
more  than  forty  years.  The  United  States  had  very 
naturally  shared  in  the  previous  conferences  and 
treaties  because  the  protection  of  her  citizens  and  of 
her  commercial  interests  in  Morocco  were  involved. 
When  the  commercial  as  well  as  the  political  relations 
of  Morocco  with  the  rest  of  the  world  were  again  in 
dispute,  the  United  States,  in  view  of  her  previous 
action,  could  neither  be  excluded  from  a  conference 
to  settle  this  question,  nor  would  it  have  been  right 
for  her  to  absent  herself.  The  point  made,  however, 
by  those  in  America  who  opposed  this  action  by  the 
United  States  was  that  the  Morocco  Conference  in 
volved  military  and  political  as  well  as  commercial 
questions,  and  that  the  great  Powers  of  Europe 
were  deeply  concerned  in  these  military  and  political 
differences,  which  had  become  so  serious  as  even  to 
threaten  war.  There  was  really  nothing  in  this  point 


268       THE   UNITED   STATES   AT   ALGECIRAS 

which  should  have  caused  any  objection  to  the  pres 
ence  of  the  United  States  at  Algeciras,  and  even  the 
briefest  consideration  of  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
United  States  will  show  the  soundness  of  this 
assertion. 

Washington's  warning  against  "  entangling  alli 
ances,"  so  much  invoked  against  permitting  the 
United  States  to  share  in  the  Algeciras  Conference, 
was  due  to  the  trouble  which  had  been  caused  by 
the  treaty  of  alliance  between  France  and  the  United 
States,  made  when  the  American  colonies  were  en 
gaged  in  the  War  of  Independence  against  England. 
When  fifteen  years  later  the  French  Revolution  in 
volved  France  in  war  with  the  other  European 
Powers  and  with  Great  Britain,  she  insisted  that 
the  United  States  was  bound  to  take  part  with 
her  in  these  hostilities.  Washington's  Administra 
tion  held  that  the  treaty  with  France  bound  the 
United  States  only  in  case  of  defensive  war,  and 
that  the  war  in  which  France  was  then  engaged 
was  offensive ;  but  this  decision  and  the  neutrality 
policy  put  forward  by  Hamilton  and  adopted  by 
Washington  in  consequence  of  it  were  very  unpopular 
in  the  United  States,  and  led  to  many  serious  diffi 
culties.  It  was  with  these  facts  strongly  in  his  mind 
that  Washington,  in  his  Farewell  Address,  laid  down 
so  strongly  the  proposition  that  the  United  States 
should  hold  itself  free  from  all  "  entangling  alliances/' 


THE   UNITED   STATES   AT   ALGECIRAS       269 

and  to  the  policy  thus  impressed  upon  his  country 
men  by  the  first  President  the  United  States  has  ever 
since  rigidly  adhered.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  discuss 
whether  this  policy,  strictly  enforced,  is  abstractly 
wise  or  not.  The  American  people  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years  have  not  only  believed  in  its  wisdom, 
but  have  faithfully  observed  it,  and  there  is  no  im 
mediate  probability  that  it  will  ever  or  ought  ever 
to  be  departed  from.  .. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  was  merely  the  cor 
ollary  of  Hamilton's  and  Washington's  neutrality 
policy,  declared,  broadly  speaking,  that  Europe  must 
not  interfere  with  the  Governments  established  in 
America,  and  that  no  portion  of  the  American  hemis 
phere  was  open  to  any  further  colonization.  It  also 
reiterated  the  allegiance  of  the  United  States  to  the 
doctrine  of  Washington,  as  expressed  in  the  policy 
of  neutrality  and  in  the  avoidance  of  "entangling 
alliances."  The  policy  of  Washington,  however,  does 
not  in  the  least  exclude,  and  never  has  been  held  to  ex 
clude,  the  United  States  from  agreements  with  one  or 
more  European  Powers  as  to  matters  affecting  trade 
and  commerce,  or  from  international  conventions 
which  are  entered  into  for  the  improvement  of  condi 
tions  in  war  or  for  the  promotion  of  the  world's  peace. 

The  following  list  of  treaties  with  European 
Powers  and  of  international  agreements  upon 
such  subjects  shows  by  the  mere  enumeration 


270        THE   UNITED   STATES   AT  ALGECIRAS 

what  the  attitude  of  the  United  States  has  been  in 
this  respect  for  many  years.  In  1863  the  United 
States  joined  with  certain  countries  of  Europe  in  a 
general  treaty  as  to  tariff  dues  on  the  river  Scheldt. 
In  1866  she  joined  with  France,  Great  Britain,  and 
the  Netherlands  in  a  tariff  treaty  with  Japan.  In 
1899  she  made  a  joint  treaty  with  Germany  and 
Great  Britain  for  the  settlement  of  the  Samoan  ques 
tion.  The  United  States  joined  in  international  con 
ventions  in  1864  relating  to  wounded  in  time  of  war ; 
again  in  1868  on  the  same  subject;  in  1875  on 
weights  and  measures ;  in  1883  as  to  industrial  prop 
erty;  in  1884  as  to  submarine  cables;  in  1886  as  to 
the  exchange  of  official  documents ;  in  1890  as  to  cus 
toms  tariffs  ;  in  1890  as  to  the  African  slave  trade ; 
in  1899  in  a  general  treaty  for  the  exclusion  of 
spirituous  liquors  from  Africa;  in  1901  she  was  one 
of  the  signers  of  the  protocol  with  China  at  the 
close  of  the  Boxer  insurrection ;  and  in  1899  united 
in  all  the  Hague  Conventions.  Any  other  policy, 
indeed,  than  that  disclosed  by  these  treaties  and 
conventions  would  be  childish  in  the  extreme,  and 
Washington,  who  was  not  only  a  great  statesman, 
but  one  of  the  wisest  of  men,  would  have  been  the 
last  to  suggest  that  the  principle  laid  down  by  him 
in  his  Farewell  Address  was  so  fatuous  as  to  exclude 
the  United  States  from  such  agreements  as  those 
just  enumerated. 


THE   UNITED   STATES   AT   ALGECIRAS       271 

The  theory  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  shuts  us  out 
from  participation  in  any  European  engagement  of 
any  kind  whatever  is  equally  unfounded.  The  Mon 
roe  Doctrine  is  not  international  law.  It  is  the 
policy  of  the  United  States,  which  exsits  because 
the  United  States  maintains  it,  and  proposes  to 
maintain  it  by  force  if  necessary.  Like  the  peace 
of  the  United  States  it  depends  upon  the  American 
navy.  The  fact  that  the  navy  of  the  United  States 
is  now,  in  ships  built  and  building,  the  third  in  the 
world,  and  in  point  of  fighting  power  a  close  third, 
proves  the  serious  determination  of  the  American 
people  to  uphold  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  That  doc 
trine,  formulated  by  John  Quincy  Adams,  com 
mands  assent  primarily  by  the  support  of  the 
United  States,  and  also,  as  the  American  people 
believe,  by  its  own  intrinsic  reasonableness.  It  is 
-ythe  balance-of-power  policy  applied  to  the  Western 
Hemisphere,  and  the  United  States  will  uphold  it 
as  the  balance  of  power  is  upheld  by  the  nations 
of  Europe,  and  because  it  is  absolutely  essential  to 
her  own  peace  and  safety.  But  the  fact  that  we 
do  not  and  will  not  permit  Europe  to  interfere  in 
affairs  which  solely  concern  the  American  conti 
nents  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  make  with 
the  Powers  of  Europe  such  agreements  as  have  been 
described  which  affect  trade  or  commerce  or  the 
peace  of  the  world.  If  we  were  to  seek  for  terri- 


272       THE   UNITED   STATES   AT   ALGECIRAS 

torial  possession  in  Europe,  or  if  we  were  to  engage 
ourselves  in  European  alliances  which  might  involve 
us  in  war,  then,  indeed,  we  should  violate  both  the 
policy  of  Washington  and  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
but  we  have  not  done,  and  have  no  intention  of 
doing  either.  And  the  explicit  reservation  on  these 
points  made  by  our  delegates  on  signing  the  protocol 
at  Algeciras  illustrates  and  demonstrates  our  policy. 
We  seek  in  fact  no  territory  anywhere,  and  desire 
none,  least  of  all  in  Europe.  For  strategic  reasons 
we  were  ready  to  buy  the  Danish  Islands  a  few  years 
ago,  and  are  ready  to  do  so  now.  But  when  Den 
mark,  yielding  to  outside  pressure,  declined  to  ratify 
the  treaty,  we  found  no  fault.  We  are  perfectly 
content  that  Denmark  should  retain  her  islands, 
but  it  must  be  distinctly  understood  that  if  she  sells 
we  are  the  only  purchaser,  and  the  attempt  of  any 
other  Power  to  take  those  islands  or  any  other 
American  territory,  especially  in  the  Caribbean  Sea 
or  along  the  route  of  the  Canal,  would  be  regarded  by 
the  American  people  as  practically  an  act  of  war. 

I  repeat,  we  seek  no  territory  anywhere  and  we 
desire  none ;  in  Europe  it  could  not  be  forced  upon 
us,  and  our  only  purpose  in  any  dealings  relating  to 
European  affairs  would  be,  as  has  just  been  shown  at 
Algeciras,  to  protect  our  own  commercial  interests 
and  to  advance  the  cause  of  peace  and  good-will 
among  the  nations.  We  do  not  pretend  to  be  more 


THE   UNITED   STATES   AT   ALGECIRAS        273 

disinterested  or  more  unselfish  than  our  neighbors, 
but  in  the  nature  of  things,  so  far  as  Europe  is  con 
cerned,  our  objects  can  only  be  peace,  commerce,  and 
good  relations.     We  were  at  Algeciras   because  we 
were  signatories  to  the  previous  treaties  and  because 
our  commercial  interests  were  involved  in  the  settle 
ment  of  the  recent  differences.     It  is  also  true  that 
the  influence  of  the  United  States  was  used  there  as 
it  was  used  last  June,  when  the  Moroccan  troubles 
began,  for  the  promotion  of  the  world's  peace,  and 
this  also  is  no  departure  either  from  the  policy  of 
the  Farewell  Address  or  from  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
Under  the  Hague  Convention,  to  which  the  United 
States  was  a  signatory,  each  nation  has  the  right  to 
offer  its  good  offices  for  the  settlement  of  differences 
between  other  signatory  nations.     President  Roose 
velt  exercised  this  right  in  the  summer  of  1905  to 
bring  about  a  conclusion  of  the  war  between  Russia 
and  Japan.     His  brilliant  success  commanded  the  ad 
miration  and  gratitude  not  only  of  his  own  country 
men,  but  of  the  world.     It  would  be  a  melancholy 
thing  indeed  if   the  moral  influence  of  the  United 
States  could  not  be  exerted  for  such  a  purpose.     It 
was  in  conformity  with    this  same  policy  that  the 
influence  of  the  United  States  has  been  used  through 
out  the  Moroccan  question  to  prevent  war,  if  there 
was  any  danger  of  it,  between  two  great  Powers, 
both  friends  of   the  United  States,  the  conflict   be- 

18 


274       THE   UNITED   STATES   AT   ALGECIRAS 

tween  whom  would  have  been  a  most  dire  misfortune, 
which  would  have  called  down  upon  the  aggressor 
the  reprobation  of  civilized  mankind. 

This  was  the  whole  case  so  far  as  the  United 
States  at  Algeciras  was  concerned.  The  appearance 
there  of  the  American  delegates  was  in  strict  con 
formity  with  the  attitude  which  the  United  States 
has  always  taken  in  regard  to  affairs  in  Europe,  and 
beyond  the  line  so  strictly  observed  hitherto  the 
United  States  will  not  go,  and  cannot  be  drawn. 
But  the  policy  of  the  United  States  is  peace.  She 
wishes  not  only  to  maintain  her  own  peace,  but  the 
peace  of  the  world  is  to  her  of  the  first  importance. 
She  will  always  use  her  influence  to  maintain  the 
world's  peace,  acting  in  accordance  with  the  language 
and  spirit  of  the  Hague  Convention.  She  will  be 
drawn  into  no  alliances,  defensive  or  offensive,  with 
any  nation  anywhere,  and  into  no  wars  by  connection 
with  any  European  Power.  Yet  at  the  same  time 
she  will  not  hesitate  to  use  her  moral  influence  to 
prevent  wars  if  her  good  offices  can  prevent  them, 
either  between  the  Powers  of  Europe  or  in  any 
portion  of  the  civilized  globe  where  her  efforts  can 
rightfully  be  exercised.1 

1  Copyright  in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  1906. 


BY    HENRY    CABOT    LODGE 
THE 

STORY   OF   THE   REVOLUTION 

With  nearly  200  illustrations  by  Howard  Pyle 

F.  C.  Yohn,  H.  W.  Ditzkr,  G.  A.  Shipley 

W.  A.  Clark,  and  others 

8vo.     $3.00 

" 'The  Story  of  the  Revolution'  as  told  by  Mr.  Lodge  is  not 
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sive  demonstration  of  the  place  which  the  American  Revolution 
occupies  in  the  democratic  movement.  'The  meaning  of  the 
American  Revolution '  is  the  most  powerful  and  eloquent  piece 
of  interpretative  history  we  have  read  for  many  a  day.  Learn 
ing,  impartiality,  clear  vision,  generosity,  the  historic  sense,  and 
very  often  eloquence,  distinguish  Mr.  Lodge's  book," 

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—  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger 

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whom  the  work  is  dedicated,  but  all  patriotic  Americans,  will 
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they  owe  their  fathers,  (  The  Story  of  the  Revolution.'  " 

—  Ne?v  York  Sun 


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